


A Clash of Claws & Shadows

by TiredEagleOfManwe



Category: Horus Heresy - Various Authors, Warhammer - All Media Types, Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Beating, Betrayal, Blood and Injury, Blood and Torture, Broken Bones, Brotherhood, Brotherly Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Captivity, Chains, Character Study, Claws, Daemons, Darkness, Dialogue Heavy, Dreams and Nightmares, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Forced to Watch, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Grimdark, Heroic Willpower, Hope vs. Despair, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Imprisonment, Leadership, Loss, Loyalty, M/M, Male Friendship, Mental Anguish, Mind Games, Mind Rape, Minor Character Death, Mutilation, Nihilism, Physical Abuse, Prisoner abuse, Prisoner of War, Psychological Warfare, Sadism, Self-Harm, Situational Humiliation, Solitary Confinement, Starvation, Suffering, Temptation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:55:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 63,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21946930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TiredEagleOfManwe/pseuds/TiredEagleOfManwe
Summary: Horus Heresy (Warhammer 30k) AU were the Raven Guard primarch Corvus Corax is not rescued from Isstvan V and instead falls into the diabolical claws of his traitorous brother - the Night Haunter Konrad Curze [ON HOLD]
Relationships: Alastor Rushal/Jago Sevatarion, Corvus Corax/Konrad Curze, Konrad Curze/Shang (WH40k)
Comments: 27
Kudos: 67





	1. I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for battle violence and intense mental anguish

**Memories / A Clash of Claws and Shadows / Embrace Me  
**

**I.**

_“You will never have to hide again, Corax…”_

His Emperor-Father had told him this once. Long ago, it seemed now; many lifetimes ago. They had been the last words He had spoken to His nineteenth son, just before He had departed Deliverance after their first fateful meeting. Somehow He had known, known what no one else on the prison-moon ever had, the secret Corax had kept from them all: from his guardians, his teachers, his friends and fellow conspirators and revolutionaries; and the guards, of course – especially the guards.

Corax had never been ashamed of his secret gift, no more then he had been ashamed of his rapid maturity, his unsurpassing intellect, or his great and terrible strength. Even before learning that he was a primarch, one of only twenty in all the galaxy, a unique gene-son of the greatest Man ever to be sired by the human race, with a destiny far greater then any he could have ever envisioned, he had never be ashamed or troubled by his own fundamental nature, despite the great gulfs that separated him from the other humans around him. Everything that made him what he was – from his marble-white skin to his void-black eyes to knowing seven thousand, six hundred and forty-one human languages from his very infancy, to the gift itself – seemed right, seemed fitting, seemed perfectly suitable for a being such as him to posses.

_“You will never have to hide again…”_

Corax recalled the faint smile that had crossed his Father’s beatific features, the knowing look emanating from eyes both dark and yet filled with golden fire. Joy had flooded through the newly-discovered primarch at the Emperor’s words, for he had known instantly of what He was referring to. Someone else knew about the gift, knew and understood. Yet the time had come for him to emerge from the shadows, to take his place in the Emperor's Great Crusade as the leader and gene-sire of the Raven Guard. No more hiding; no more dwelling in ignorance amid the shadows. The time to embrace both his true nature and his preordained destiny had finally come.

His true nature…his preordained destiny…

_“You will never…”_

“Father…” the Ravenlord whispered aloud, his voice a weak rasp brushing vainly against the jagged shadows coalescing thickly about him. Corvus Corax, Primarch of the Raven Guard Legion, was hiding once more. Only this time – for the first time – Corax was ashamed. Ashamed and, above all else – _impossibly_ above all else – he was _afraid_.

“Father, forgive me…help me…”

The shadows thickened further, seeping like black poison into his mind, into his memories, weaving a death-shroud about his very will.

“He cannot hear you,” the Night Haunter hissed from the darkness.

**II.**

Shadows; the shadows are everywhere, pressing in on Corax and submersing his superhuman senses within their stygian depths. For the first time he takes no solace in their company. He is lost. He is alone. He is being hunted. Corax tells himself he is not afraid. The primarch has never been afraid of anything in his life – until tonight; until this very moment…

Corax can scent him on the ashen air. His hunter carries with him the rancid stench of an abandoned charnel-house; the breath that betrays his presence is the vile reek of brutalized corpses left to rot in the rain. Old blood griming already-blackened fang-like teeth; midnight-blue artificer armor spattered with dried viscera and adorned with the skulls of fallen legionaries and the flayed skins of mortal victims; eyes blacker then the voids between the stars and just as pitiless. Pallid skin smeared with gore and filth; oily black hair plastered to gaunt cheeks and narrow shoulders. Corax does not need to see him to know who it is that hunts him, who it is that pursues him through the endless shadows as tirelessly as the night wind.

 _“Brother…”_ Konrad Curze’s voice is like the sifting of dirt in the grave, laden with the promise of pain and degradation. “I am coming for you…face me; fight me, if you dare…avenge your sons – avenge your Legion!”

With trickery and cunning Corax has managed to stay abreast of the Night Haunter’s claws and teeth. Both primarchs are creatures of the shadows, both are demigods who hunt in the gloomy secret places beyond the reach of the light. Isstvan V is a fitting theater for their preferred brand of war. It is always night on Isstvan V now. It is a dark and dawnless world, full of thick whispering shadows and the never-ending reign of an eternal night. Utilizing his unique gift, the Ravenlord has shrouded himself in a mind-confounding cloak of invisibility, effectively editing himself from the sight of his traitorous brother and becoming one with the perpetual gloom of the planet.

Corax is hiding; he is fleeing. He does not want to face or fight his twisted doppelgänger. He is afraid of the Night Haunter, of that warped nightmare persona of his own self. Shame fills him, mingling with the bitter gall of treachery and the grief of loosing his Legion. But above all, Corax is weary, weary beyond all thought or reckoning. Under his rent and broken charcoal-black artificer armor the grievous wounds Angron inflicted upon him with his chainaxes struggle to heal, the thick clotting blood saturating his mesh body-suit; shattered bones grind against each other, making each stride a necessary torture he must endure to evade his pursuer. Daggers of pain lance through his back each time he bends and turns, as if he has suffered some catastrophic spinal injury. The damaged servos in his battle-plate do not facilitate in maintaining a silent escape. Despite his gift, despite giving no voice to his pain, Curze continues to track him by the enduring scent of blood and the faint complaints of compensating power-armor.

How long? How long has he been hunting Corax? When did he pick up the trail and commit himself to this slow attritional chase? The Ravenlord can no longer rely on his posthuman eidetic memory to sort truth from assumption. Everything following his battle with Angron is a haze, an uncertain conglomerate of sensations, impressions, whispers, half-memories and vague decisions. Only the pain is a reliable constant, both the physical pain of his injuries and the emotional pain of loss and betrayal.

And the _fear_ – that deadly crippling emotion that was supposed to have been expunged from the Emperor’s immoral sons is rife within him, a foul poison slowly sapping his will and vigor. Is this how it is for the unenhanced mortal men and women when they must needs fight against Old Night monstrosities or vicious xenos-breeds so much more powerful then they, knowing they will assuredly die horribly in the attempt? Or is this fear unique only to the primarchs, a fear so deeply buried and hidden that only the most extenuating of circumstances could force it to the surface? Corax cannot imagine Sanguinius or Russ or Guilliman allowing themselves to succumb to any form of fear for any reason, not even in the face of Konrad Curze’s depredations. Perhaps it is a weakness that lies solely with him, a flaw that is only making itself apparent now that everything else has been stripped away and soiled in shame and dishonor.

“You are a _coward_ , Corax,” the Night Haunter’s ragged whisper comes from the darkness on his right, much closer than last time, his corpse-rotten breath seeming to suffuse the very air. “You flew away rather then fight me for the privilege of slaying Lorgar; then, you abandoned your duel with Angron and forsook your Legion, leaving them to die under the guns and blades of the World Eaters. How does it feel to be completely bereft of your gene-sons? How does it feel to be hunted like a craven animal with none to aid you? I can smell your fear, Corax; I can smell your guilt and your shame. You are no better then the sinful mortal wretches I stalked in Nostramo Quintus; unlike them, however, your suffering will far eclipse theirs when I visit my judgment upon you.”

Corax stopped moving and faced the shadows his brother-betrayer had wrapped himself in. With a flash of silver his meters-long lighting claws – the Raven's Talons – slashed out from their power-fist housings, crackling to life as their energy-fields activated. Despite being nicked and chipped from the fight with Angron they were still fully functional and remained the most effective weapons he wielded. He stood still, his hearts laboring in his aching chest, his own armor as befouled as Curze’s. He was in an open space, a field most likely, or a barren plateau; unable to see past the swirling shadows surrounding him Corax could expect the attack to come from any front. The Ravenlord gritted his teeth; anger – a far more familiar and welcome emotion – was beginning to rise to the fore, warring with his newfangled fear.

“You _lie_ , Curze,” he snarled back into the dark, bringing his crackling claws to bear. “I would never forsake my sons, even in the face of annihilation. I was ready to die fighting Angron; my Legion was ready. We knew the battle would be our last and we had made peace with our fate. I did not flee, Curze. I abandoned _no-one_.”

Behind him Curze laughed, a sound reminiscent of knives being sharpened against stone. Swifter then the unenhanced eye could fellow Corax spun round and slashed out with his right gauntlet; the strike met only with the ever-shifting shadows. Pain flared anew through his damaged back and he bit back a cry. The Night Haunter remained unseen, a mere suggestion of a deeper darkness within the all-encompassing night that had become the Ravenlord’s world.

“ _Then why are you here, Corax?”_ Curze was now on his left, a taunting shade among many. “If the World Eaters were to be the doom of the Nineteenth Legion then why does its primarch still live? Why are you running aimlessly about without even your bodyguards to attend to you? Face the truth, brother – you ran away; you abandoned your warriors just like you abandoned Vulkan. You left your sons to be slaughtered to a man while you alone escaped. You may have fled the wrath of the Red Angel, but none can flee the judgments of the Night Haunter. What good are your oaths if cowardice holds sway? Your loyalty to the Imperium isn’t worth the spit in my mouth. Father would be so disgusted if He could see you now – I know _I_ would be…if I had the misfortune of having a craven such as you for a son.”

Corax roared in fury and lunged in the direction of the hated words, uncaring that he was being baited. His claws scythed the shadows in a blur of lighting. For a few blessed moments he forgot his pain and his shame. Never before in his life had he wanted to kill another living being so fervently. Not even his battle with Lorgar and the Word Bearers had evoked such rage, such desire. He would gut Curze; he would eat his still-beating hearts and spit the blood back into his dying agonized face; he would render the Night Haunter down to his basic elements and then stomp what remained into the sand of Isstvan V along with the remnants of all the other traitors Corax had slain. It was a fury born of helplessness and grief. It tore apart his fear and replaced it with a perfect hatred. It burned through him like a wildfire, filling him with a terrible godlike wrath. Before such a display entire companies of Space Marines might sink to their knees in humbled awe; in the presence of such a being an entire planet of mortals might fall on their faces and offer up worship – but Curze was neither; he was a peer, a brother, a fellow son of the Emperor – and he knew no fear, for he was the architect of fear itself.

“Fight me!” Corax bellowed at the undulating shadows as they parted before his blazing claws, revealing nothing but the layers upon layers of darkness that kept his brother hidden from him. “You skulking filth! You treasonous scum! You are a cancer, Curze; you are a blight, a pox, a plague upon the galaxy itself! You are a mistake that I will correct; you are a nightmare that will be forgotten with the coming of the dawn. Where are you!? I am no longer hiding, so why not dispense with the shadow-play and continue the battle! I will skewer you as I did Lorgar! I will defy you as I did Angron! I am the Emperor’s Shadow - the Chooser of the Slain! I am the dark wing that falls across the xenos, the rebel and the traitor and proclaims their doom! My oaths to Father I will keep, in the presence of your betrayal. Fight me, Curze! Let it be finished! _Victorus aut Mortis!”_

“So it shall! _I come for you!_ ” The answering war-scream came from every direction at once and from none of them. It was the cry of a lost and damned soul that knew fully the unmitigated truth of its life and the inescapable reality of its death. The darkness split open as a second pair of lightning claws activated. The Night Haunter loomed suddenly before the Ravenlord, a tall cadaverous god in midnight-clad, a pale revenant spewed from the shadows that struck at Corax with impossible speed, seeming to dodge and twist his way through his attacks and defenses, smiling a dead man’s smile all the while. And then the pain returned – renewed and amplified beyond anything Corax had ever felt or thought he could ever feel. The claws of Curze’s right gauntlet ripped into his breastplate as if the ceramite was nothing more then rags, tearing open the raw still-healing meat of his chest. The smell of burning flesh and sizzling blood flooded Corax’s nostrils, eclipsing the Night Haunter’s own signature stench. The Ravenlord crushed a scream between his teeth and managed to deflect the left claw jabbing towards his face. His body was failing him; the soul-stirring rage was draining away, leaving behind only a hollow hopeless core where the righteous fires had burned. His back spasmed in agony; his limbs felt leaden, as if heavy chains were dragging them down, causing his strikes to go wide enough for his brother avoid. Or was Curze simply too swift, too agile even for him? No. This had to be something else – not even during the heat of the Dropsite Massacre did Corax experience such a weakness of body. Curze laughed aloud as he spun to the Ravenlord’s right, raking his claws across Corax’s fused ribs, flaying open armor, flesh and severing bones in a single devastating slash.

Corax gasped and wheeled, trying to recapture his former lethality, now completely on the defensive. The Night Haunter danced around him, a malignant twisting shade that ripped, slashed, gouged, jabbed and cut without hesitation or mercy. The loyal primarch’s blood flowed freely now, his regenitive tissue unable to keep up with the amount of damage being inflicted upon it in such a short span. Entire segments of artificer armor were being shredded and torn away like so much worthless scrap iron. Corax had not yet landed a single blow upon his fellow primarch; not a single drop of Curze’s blood had been spilled. The Ravenlord strained against the lethargy gripping him, forcing his body to respond properly, to make good on his threats, to slash and slay his tormentor, this thing he had once called brother. Curze jerked and jinked like a puppet under the control of a mad puppeteer, graceless and lacking in all discipline yet landing blow after blow, even as he evaded his brother’s flashing claws.

“Is that the best you can manage, little raven?” the Night Haunter sneered, his death-head’s grin stretching even wider. “Not going to impale me like you did dear brother Lorgar? Am I not as worthy a foe to warrant the same amount of effort? Considering how many captured Raven Guard legionaries I have tortured and slain of late I think I deserve a little more consideration – a little more _vitriol_ , if you will. They all died cursing you, Corax; cursing you and the Emperor both. You had left them to die, after all – left them to hide away in the shadows like the craven carrion-bird you are. Hah! What selfless loyalty! What heart-stirring dedication! But you couldn’t hide from me, now could you? Come on! Fight me, brother! Punish me, if you can! If you dare!”

Corax staggered towards Curze, his claws raised, his black eyes glittering with impotent violence. The shadows ebbed and flowed about him, caressing him, sapping his strength still further, making a lie of his battle prowess and destroying all his oaths and promises. For the first time he realized how strangely cold he had become – how bitterly, unforgivingly cold. Frost coated the remains of his armor and rimed his now-deactivated claws; his ragged breaths steamed furiously in the air. Blood was dribbling from both nostrils, drenching his lips and chin. For the first time since the battle began the Night Haunter was standing perfectly still, his claws angled down towards the black sandy earth. His eyes were filled with mockery and contempt, his elongated mouth still twisted in a dead man’s grin.

“Come, brother,” Curze raised his chin, exposing his pallid throat. “Avenge your Legion; avenge your honor. Embrace me. It has been so long since…someone embraced me.”

Where once white fury had raged and red pain had burned there was only an all-encompassing gray coldness that enveloped the Ravenlord’s body – a coldness that bespoke of mass graves on desolated worlds spinning aimlessly in their decaying orbits around dying suns. Ice encrusted the primarch’s bones, freezing his blood, numbing his will. He took a faltering step towards Curze. The Night Haunter did not move except to spread his arms out wide as he awaited the embrace. Corax took another step and with aching slowness angled his claws so that all he had to do was walk them straight into Curze’s body. The shadows writhed and thrashed as if in agitation or anticipation. The coldness seeped deeper, grew more profound. It was the end of all warmth and life; it was the extinction of love and hope. It was the grave of the galaxy, the very heat-death of the universe. It was Konrad Curze’s own soul.

Corvus Corax fell at last. An agonized cry finally tore loose from his tortured lips as he crashed heavily to his knees before his brother. The Raven's Talons struck the frozen ground and the peerless blades shattered like brittle pig-iron, scattering in broken fragments about the Night Haunter’s boots. Curze threw back his head and began to laugh; then the laughter morphed into a howl and the howl mutated into a piercing star-shredding scream that consumed the cosmos. The roiling shadows rushed in, attacking the Ravenlord, crawling into his mouth, piercing his eyes and worming into his ears until they filled the entirety of his mind, enshrouding his thoughts and baring him away into an even greater darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is an alternative ending/continuation to the Corvus Corax short story 'Raven's Flight' by Gav Thorpe, published in the Horus Heresy anthology "Shadows of Treachery" by the Black Library. The book also contains several Konrad Curze stories and comes highly recommended by yours truly.
> 
> So instead of the final hour 'deliverance' of Corax and the Raven Guard before they are annihilated by Angron and the World Eaters Legion I heap more pain upon Corax by having Curze capture the Raven Lord after Angron succeeds in doing what Angron does best. More than this would spoil my own fic. Corax and Curze are two of my favorite primarchs and, since they are mirrors of one another in many ways, I wanted Corax to end up as Curze's prisoner instead of Vulkan. This fic will probably be five or six chapters long.


	2. II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for situational humiliation and semi-graphic descriptions of injuries

**Back to Reality / The Apothecary's Observations / He Cannot Hear You**

**III.**

Konrad Curze convulsed and screamed aloud as his mind was violently forced back into reality. The temperature inside the cell had plummeted and frost covered everything from Curze’s armor to his brother’s naked flesh. The Night Haunter had collapsed on all fours before his captive, his buckled knees and gauntleted hands scraping against the frigid deckplate. Raising his head the primarch of the Eighth Legion looked wildly about, the dim light of the single lumen strip illuminating the cell half-blinding him after the long mind-hunt through the cold shadows.

“My lord primarch!” Firm hands sized his arm and helped him to his feet. Curze’s whole body was trembling with emotional-inputs too varied and complex to sort out. Almost instantly anger took its chief place among them. Blinking furiously he absently wiped his bleeding nose before rounding on the robed and hooded Librarian who’d come to his side. Before the Night Lords psyker could speak further Curze had grabbed him by his gorget and slammed him up against the wall, pressing his unsheathed claws against the offender’s throat. The legionary looked exhausted; blood streamed from his own nose and ears and his bald head glistened with sweat. He would not meet his gene-sire’s eyes.

“What do you mean by this interruption?” Curze snarled, baring his filed teeth in a rictus of barely-contained fury. “You cannot be burned out just yet! Is there something _else_ you would rather be doing? Shall I have Sevatar string you up with the loyalists so you can share in their agony for an hour or two? Does that sound like more fun? Your little extraction hurt – a lot. You will not – ”

“Lord Curze,” The voice was measured and respectful, stopping just short of placation. Curze turned to regard the Space Marine Apothecary who stood watch on the other side of the captive. Jarlak Haffkar was apart of the primarch’s personal medicae cadre and had tended the Night Haunter on those rare occasions when his battlefield injuries required additional attention. Curze trusted him enough to demand on his presence during Corax’s initial ‘interrogation’ to monitor both primarchs and keep an eye on the two psykers. As Curze’s black gaze fixated on him Haffkar came to and saluted sharply. The second Librarian standing next him, Zurakil, ignored his primarch completely, still deep in a trance, murmuring and twitching quietly to himself as he wove a web of shadows within the mind and about the thoughts of the Nineteenth Legion’s jailbird.

“My lord, I ordered Vallmir to extract you from the prisoner’s dreamscape,” Haffkar informed his master bluntly. “I feared you were beginning to loose control.” He gestured somewhat theatrically at Corax. The primarch of the Raven Guard hung upright, suspended from a pair of heavy adamantium chains that were fed into the cell by two separately spaced round openings in the deck above. Fresh blood ran down his powerful arms from the cruelly spiked manacles clamped about his thick wrists. His ebony eyes were open but unseeing; his head lolled limply from side to side and his breathing was harsh and labored. In the dim light of the lumen the Ravenlord looked as pallid and unhealthy as his brother. Curze let out a shuddering sigh of satisfaction as he beheld his handiwork. Even while violating his brother’s mind with attacks and taunts he had not ceased his physical attentions. Oh, how his surviving sons would weep and lament if they could behold their gene-father now! The Night Haunter licked his lips with a dark tongue, his anger swiftly subsiding. Haffkar had made the right call – somewhat. His brother was a primarch, after all; he would heal – in time.

Curze had virtually slashed Corax apart. The Ravenlord’s marble-white skin was scored with countless rips, cuts and mutilations that crisscrossed his muscular frame in great blood-blackened lines of near-surgical precision. Skin and flesh hung loose in raw red ribbons, exposed bones and organs glistened wetly amid the torn and rent muscle. But what caught Curze’s attention were the frozen tear-tracks marring Corax’s pale cheeks. Dark joy flamed in his hearts and a smile split his gaunt face once more.

“So, he wept…” The Night Haunter let the offending Vallmir fall with to the floor in a heap and approached his senseless brother, deactivating and sheathing his lightning claws as he did so. “What brought out those tears, little raven?”

Grabbing a fist-full of Corax’s long black hair Curze jerked back his fellow primarch’s head and gripped his chin in armored fingers. Corax’s eyes were glazed over, his awareness still submerged within the world of shadows that had become his mental prison. Curse lowered his face and ran his tongue along one salty tear-track. He did not recall Corax weeping as he stalked and struck him in the realm of shades but that was of little importance. That the reserved and taciturn Ravenlord could cry at all and that Curze had managed to wrangle such an emotional response out of him was a triumph in and of itself – especially since Curze himself had never once cried nor wept over anything or anyone.

“Did he say anything?” he asked Haffkar. “Did he speak aloud?”

“Yes, lord; several times over the course of two hours he cried out your name. He distinctly said ‘“Fight me”’ and ‘“I am the Emperor’s Shadow.”’ He also shouted the battle cry of his legion at the top of his lungs near the end.”

Curze nodded. _“Victorus aut Mortis_ – Victory or Death. A truly lamentable phrase; he has achieved no victory and will not be granted the merciful release of death. He must live with his failures, which I will exaggerate a hundred-fold; and with his guilt, which I will raise to undreamed-of heights. I will break him in the eyes of his sons; I will make him curse the Emperor from the depths of his hearts for having created him. He will come to learn the true nature of this universe and to understand what it means to dwell in the Dark.”

The Night Lords' primarch nuzzled his brother’s exposed neck, brushing the cold skin with lips skinned back from his fangs as if fighting the desire to tear open the Ravenlord’s jugular and bathe in his lifeblood. Even after witnessing Curze’s claws at work just minutes ago the sight struck Haffkar as keenly captivating and exciting. Turning Corax’s other cheek Curze licked away the second tear-track, pressing his slender body suggestively against the Ravenlord’s ravaged form, staining his battleplate still further with the blood of the False Emperor's loyal son. From his place on the floor Vallmir watched the scene with eager eyes, momentarily forgetting his exhaustion. Konrad Curze was a being with few rivals and even fewer peers. To witness a fellow primarch at his mercy in such a way was a sight none of them had ever expected to see, and since Corax physically resembled Curze to an uncanny degree it was impossible not to regard them as brothers in the truest sense of the word. Not that the Night Haunter had ever been swayed or softened by blood-ties or notions of brotherhood. After his mauling of Rogal Dorn he had hid himself from his peers until the Isstvan V ambush when the Warmaster’s followers had revealed their true allegiances during the Dropsite Massacre.

Curze stepped back and considered his doppelgänger captive, his head cocked in contemplation, his hands clenching and unclenching with suppressed violence. The rich spicy scent of spilled and spattered primarch blood pervaded the cell and though the chill was beginning to lessen the bleak room remained many degrees cooler then the bulk of the _Nightfall_. It still stank like a slaughter house, almost as bad as the personal torture chambers and the communal holding cells on the excruciation decks in the brig were the loyalist Space Marines were imprisoned. Haffkar wondered if any of the Raven Guard legionaries who still lived knew that their gene-sire had been taken prisoner along with them. The Night Lord hoped he would be present when the soul-crushing news broke.

“How long?” Curze asked abruptly, almost catching the Apothecary off-guard. Haffkar knew what his master wanted to know but the Night Lord could give him no solid scientifically-grounded answer. The Primarchs were to their gene-sons what Space Marines were to mortal unenhanced humans. They were the sons of the Emperor: demigods, immortals, the perfected products of an archaic blend of genecraft and biomancery that defied all scrutiny or understanding. There was no limit to their potential. Even treating Curze himself had left Haffkar no more enlightened regarding the physiology of the being who ruled and commanded their Legion .

“With or without medical intervention?” he asked, stalling for time. Curze just stared at him, his ebony eyes depthless pits of malice and despair.

“He’ll be mended in a few weeks, lord, if you allow him to simply hang.” The Night Haunter snorted, as if he guessed the Night Lord was grasping at straws. Vallmir took the opportunity to stand upright again, sweat still slicking his pale brow. Beside Haffkar, Zurakil continued to murmur and sway, heedless to what was transpiring in the cell around him as he kept the Ravenlord mindlocked in the shadowed realms of nightmare and ignorance. When the call had gone throughout the _Nightfall_ that the primarch needed the assistance of his legion’s former Librarians to further his brother’s torment Kartar Zurakil of the Eleventh Company had been the first to step forward. Haffkar wondered how long the psyker would last. It was no easy feat to violate and bewitch a primarch’s mind but the Night Lord was doing a commendable job, even if his task had been eased due to Corax arriving utterly brutalized and senseless from his confrontation with Angron. Five days had passed since the Eighth Legion’s departure from the Isstvan system and the loyalist primarch had remained under psykeatic restraint for the duration of the journey. When Zurakil burned out another Librarian would take his place until Curze was ready for the Ravenlord to awaken to the true reality of his predicament. Haffkar hoped he would be present for that event as well.

“Let him hang, then,” Curze snarled, a faint note of pain in his rasp. Blood had started coursing from his nose again and a tick had developed under his left eye. Haffkar recognized the telltale signs and also knew that Curze wouldn’t allow himself to be examined. There was really nothing he could do for his lord anyway. The Night Haunter’s precognitive visions had plagued him since infancy and would continue to do so until his dying day. Nothing could be done to halt or forestall them – they could only be suffered and endured.

“I must consult the cards…” Curze murmured to himself as he drew his tattered black cloak about his shoulders, the bulk of his waking mind already submersed in visions of events both close at hand and far into the future. He made for the door; a voice stopped him dead in his tracks.

"Father..."

The Night Haunter spun back to face Corax. The Ravenlord's eyes were still glazed, his mind as uncomprehending of his surroundings as Zurakil's, but he had spoken the words aloud, his voice as rasping as his brother's.

"Father, forgive me...help me..."

"He cannot hear you!" hissed Curze, naked loathing and pain etched in equal measure on his face. No foresight had had warned him of his brother's pleas. With a guttural snarl the primarch backhanded Corax across the face, splitting the Ravenlord's lips and dislodging several teeth. Without another word the Night Haunter stalked from the cell and vanished like a wraith down the shadowed corridor beyond. Vallmir chanced a glance at the Apothecary, relief written plain on his features. Haffkar sneered back, disgusted by the legionary’s display of weakness.

“Better return to your duties, witchkin– he’ll not call on you again.”

The wearied psyker exited with a bowed head and Haffkar was left alone with the muttering Zurakil and the bloodied primarch. Curze hadn’t relieved him of duty. He would stay and continue to monitor both of the cell’s occupants. Not as edifying as tending to wounded legionaries or spending quality time torturing Salamanders but the Night Lord understood - as did all Space Marines in the Eighth Legion - that the galaxy didn’t exist to supply him with edification - much less with illumination, meaning or purpose. Blood was all the cosmos ever seemed to demand and, as Haffkar inhaled deeply of the spicy blood-stench of the beaten demigod hanging like a sack of meat before him, blood was all the cosmos was ever going to get.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is going to be longer then I anticipated. Bear with me.


	3. III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for battle violence, blood and intense mental anguish

**A Vital Question / Facing Lorgar / Judgment of the Father**

**IV.**

_"Then why are you here, Corax?”_

That was the question which haunted him now in the stead of the monster who had asked it. Adrift in deepest darkness and consumed with unconquerable pain the Night Haunter’s question slipped and slithered through Corax’s captive thoughts like a fanged worm gnawing its way into the meat of his mind. Curze had vanished from his awareness like a bad dream barely recalled, but the Ravenlord knew his brother had triumphed. The only scent was the rich spicy reek of his clotting blood encrusting dire wounds too numerous to consider. His charcoal-black armor was completely gone, shredded and shorn away piece by piece, and the Raven's Talons were naught but broken pieces scattered across the ground…somewhere.

Corax still could not fathom where he was; the shadows still coalesced and swirled about him in layers too deep to penetrate, even with his enhanced posthuman sight. The deathly cold that had gripped and suffused his body had ebbed away leaving behind only the burning agony of his recent injuries. The Ravenlord had stumbled – or perhaps he had crawled – from the site of his defeat as soon as awareness had returned, desiring only to hide once more, to find a haven within the darkness where he might rest and prepare for Curze’s eventual return. Of this one thing Corax was utterly certain; the Night Haunter would hunt him down again with the intent to either capture him or kill him. Why Curze hadn’t struck his head from his shoulders when the Ravenlord had finally fallen at his feet was a question the primarch hadn’t even entertained. There was only one question that occupied his mind and its implications were terrible ones.

_Why was he here?_

As a primarch, Corax was capable of complete and total recall. From the moment he had emerged as an infant from his wrecked cradle-engine in an ice-cave on the prison-moon of Lycaeus to the duel with his brother Angron as the Raven Guard and World Eaters legions clashed around them, the Ravenlord retained full memory of the events of his life in perfect detail and proper chronological order. From the horror felt during the Dropsite Massacre to each attack, retreat and counterstrike he’d ordered in response to the traitor legion’s assaults Corax could trace his actions, thoughts and even his emotions back to opening actions of the Isstvan campaign with upmost clarity.

He had fought with Angron. He knew with absolute certainty he had engaged the Red Angel in a duel to the death. Angron had been winning. Remembering this brought Corax no shame; he had defied his brother knowing he would loose, knowing the remnants of the Raven Guard would perish in the battle with Angron’s lobotomized blood-maddened gene-sons. He had made his peace with his fate and with the fate of his warriors. And so the question remained – a question more maddening than any of Curze’s taunts and accusations. The question stood before Corax and awaited an answer, an answer so soul-destroying that to confront it meant to suffer a greater torment than any he’d suffered thus far.

_Why are you here?_

He should be laying dead, surround by the heaped bodies of his gene-sons, his head hanging from Angron’s belt as a gristly war-trophy.

_Why are you here?_

He couldn’t be here. He had fallen in battle alongside his Legion. He had died under Angron’s axes. He had…

He had run away.

No!

He had hid. He had abandoned his sons; forsaken the Nineteenth. 

No!

Yes. _Yes_. Why else was he here? Why else would he still be alive? He had quite the field; utilizing his special gift he had slipped away, saving his skin at the expense of his legionaries. He was a coward; he was a faithless, craven son. He…He…

 _"Why can't I remember!”_ Corax cried despairingly into the pulsing shadows. He was seated, his back resting against rough stone. His knees were drawn up to his chest, his arms loosely wrapped around them. He could see nothing; could hear nothing. It was night on Isstvan V and the night was eternal. Curze would find him again and the hunt would continue. This was the price of cowardice. The Night Haunter knew the truth and had held back from slaying him until Corax acknowledged his sins. Curze had always considered himself a bringer of justice, an enforcer of order, a punisher of the guilty and the sinful. It did not matter if Corax remained loyal to the Emperor and the Imperium; the Ravenlord knew he was just as traitorous as Horus. Curze likely thought himself perfectly justified in terrorizing his brother. And if Corax had indeed abandoned the Raven Guard to the World Eaters then he deserved being on the claw-end of the Night Haunter’s justice – deserved the pain and the shame; for the crime of cowardice no punishment could be fitting enough. 

It was too much. Corax bowed his head and wept for the second time in his life. Space Marines had slaughtered Space Marines. Brother had killed brother. The Emperor’s dream would die in the ever-expanding flames of their civil war. The Legiones Astartes would destroy themselves and the Imperium of Man would bear the brunt of their bloody fall. Nothing would ever be the same. Mortal men and women would never trust the Emperor’s chosen again. Worlds – entire sectors – would burn and countless billions would perish. The Nineteenth Legion was no more and its primarch had been found wanting. The Night Haunter would return and deliver the final verdict, a just verdict. Corax gazed sightlessly around him, his ebony eyes unable to penetrate the deeper blackness surrounding him. He had failed his sons and his Father both. Corax closed his eyes. Death would be a boon, now, but only Curze had the power to gift it. And as long as Corax regarded death as a gift, the Night Haunter would likely refrain from slaying him.

Slowly the Ravenlord collapsed onto his side and curled himself further into a fetal position. His body demanded sleep – a rare desire but not an unwelcome one. His mind, exhausted and strained, needed to rest even more. Corax knew he shouldn’t succumb to the temptation; Curze could return at any time. But he was so weary…so tired. When mortal humans felt this wretched they had many distractions available to alleviate their misery: food, alcohol, sleep, intercourse, narcotics, games and competitions, songs and dance, holo-vid entertainment programs ….their small unenhanced minds and their frail unperfected bodies made pleasure and forgetfulness easy for them to pursue and enjoy. Corax had never envied them until now. All he could hope for was a few hours of fitful sleep as a reprieve from the nightmare that had so swiftly and thoroughly become his existence. The Ravenlord let out a long sigh and allowed his beleaguered mind to shut down. Sleep gripped hold of him with black claws bearing fell gifts of corrupted memories and twisted visions, pulling him from one nightmare into another…

**V.**

War. Battle. Death. He had been created for war, bred for battle and given life to bring about death in the name of his Father’s great dream. Soaring above the mêlée of warring Space Marine legionaries on fabricated razor-edged wings, his powerful jetpack baring his mighty form aloft, Corvus Corax, the Shadowed Lord and primarch of the Nineteenth Legion Raven Guard, allowed his pure white-hot wrath to consume him, filling him to the brim so that his former brothers and their sons might drink of it in full measure. His Legion had been betrayed. Thousands of his warriors had been slain within mere minutes. There was no time to grieve or to ask questions. The massacre was taking place on a scale unprecedented in the annuals of Imperial history. The Salamanders, Iron Hands and Raven Guard Legions faced nothing less then outright annihilation. Corax stooped and plunged, heedless of the bolter and las fire impacting and scorching his armor without effect, having spotted at last the object of his immense wrath: Lorgar Aurelian, primarch of the Word Bearers Legion, a brother he barely knew but now hated with a perfect unadulterated hatred.

The Urizen strode among the black ranks of Corax’s gene-sons, lying waste to everything about him with his crackling crozius-mace, haloed in a sickly gold psychic fire that mocked the beatific sun-like glory that perpetually radiated from their Emperor-Father. About the traitor-primarch the World Bearers and the Raven Guard clashed, the Word Bearers pressing the advantage while the outnumbered loyalists struggled make a fighting retreat. Without hesitation Corax hit their front ranks like a thunderbolt, making a crater the size of an Earthshaker shell with the force of his landing. The Ravenlord raised his head slowly, looking at the traitor legionaries, his uncontainable wrath plain for all to see. With the scream akin to a wounded bird of prey he unsheathed and activated his talons and marched towards Lorgar, slaying any Word Bearer unfortunate enough to be within reach, his slashing wings severing heads and tearing open torsos. Lorgar reacted in kind, striding over a charcoal blanket of fallen Raven Guard warriors as he sought to close with his brother.

Crozius at last met claw and the two demigods battled as their gene-sons slew one another and the skies of Isstvan V burned above them. Corax fought to kill; Lorgar fought to stay alive, his battle prowess far outmached by the Lord of Ravens. “What are you doing?” Corax cried into his brother’s face as their weapons locked and they each strained to gain the upper hand. “What madness has taken you all? _Answer me_ , traitor. You are a poor reflection of our Father with that psychic gold.”

“I am bringing the _truth_ to humanity,” Lorgar breathed, his gray eyes bright with desperation, his golden skin slicked with sweat.

“You are destroying the Imperium!" Corax growled. "You are betraying your own blood! I will kill you for this, Lorgar.”

“I know.” Lorgar replied through gritted teeth. “But I have seen what will be. Our Father, a bloodless corpse enthroned upon gold, and screaming into the void forever.”

“ _Lies_.” Corax’s black eyes narrowed. “You are reducing a kingdom to chaos. Overthrowing the perfect order.”

“The opposite of chaos is not order, brother. It is stasis. Lifeless, unchanging… stasis.”

With a snarl Corax smashed the crozius aside and sank both pairs of the Raven's Talons into Lorgar's stomach, twisting them deeper and deeper until they snagged in the primarch's spine. Lorgar let the crozius drop and sized hold of the Ravenlord’s neck in both hands. Corax remained undisturbed as his brother attempted to throttle him, his grip grievously weakened by his devastating injuries. In desperation Lorgar head-butted him, breaking his nose with a audible crunch. Corax ignored the blow and continued systematically sawing apart the treacherous slayer of his sons. Lorgar head-butted Corax again and again, destroying his delicate sculpted features as the loyalist primarch’s blazing claws wrecked untold ruin within him.

“For…the…Emperor,” Corax hissed softly through bloodied lips. With an astonishing display of strength he lifted Lorgar’s heavily armored body off the ground, slowly raising him aloft as if making an offering to a presiding god of war. The primarch of the Seventeenth Legion screamed in utter agony, his body shuddering as waves of pain washed through him, overwhelming his senses and ending his resistance. Corax allowed himself a grim smile. It wasn’t enough, of course. He could slay Lorgar a dozen times over and it still wouldn’t be enough. The freshly-spilled blood of thousands of Raven Guard legionaries cried out for justice. There was only one reward for such gross treachery; one fate reserved for those who would dare to partake in such a betrayal. Throughout all of humanity’s long and bloody history there was one crime, one sin that remained consistently reviled by all men across all times and epochs: verily, the _kinslayer_ was the most despised and abhorred creature in all the cosmos, both now and forever and unto the ages of ages. Lorgar's status as an immortal posthuman did not change that unalterable truth. Nothing could change it. With a grunt Corax hefted his brother higher. Dark blood poured in a liquid torrent from Lorgar's gaping mouth. Amazingly he was still struggling to speak, each pain-wrought word accompanied by a rain of bloody spittle that spattered across the Ravenlord's battered face.

"But He lied to us. Father...lied to us..."

"Die, brother." Corax commanded, bracing his great muscles against the strain of the primarch's considerable weight. "Die, traitor. Die, Kinslayer. In the name Terra and for the good of the Imperium I command thee to _die _."__

**+Corvus Corax – stop.+**

Time stood still. The clamoring sounds of battle were hushed. A ghostly white vapor arose and swirled about Corax and Lorgar, blotting their respective legionaries from sight and sealing them in their own private world. Then there was an eardrum-rupturing thunderclap and a sickening discombobulating sense of displacement that left Corax feeling physically ill for the first time in his life. There was a blinding flash of such intensity it rendered the primarch sightless for a few terrifying seconds. The air pressure changed abruptly. Then the vapor cleared and as Corax recognized the place he had been teleported to his hearts soared with joy like a pair of skydancing ravens and the great mental and emotional wounds inflicted deep in his psyche by the Dropsite Massacre were soothed as with a healing balm. He smiled again. Not the grim, bitter smile of an assassin with an unpleasant duty to preform, but a true smile straight from the soul, the rare smile of a man beholding at long last the one he loves and honors above all others.

“Father…my Emperor…” Corax breathed in reverent fear, too stunned to kneel. He was standing in the stragitarium of the _Bucephelus _,__ the peerless battle-barge and personal flagship of the Master of Mankind. Before him on a raised dais his Father sat on an ornate command-throne surmounted with a double-headed Imperial eagle of graven gold, haloed with light like unto that of Sol itself, scattering golden radiance with such intensity it blinded Corax to all else but Him alone. A simple crown of laurels rested on a tanned brow framed by flowing raven-black hair. The Emperor’s dark eyes were ancient beyond thought, yet His stern face radiated youthfulness and vitality; He was clad like a battle god in artificer armor of such unsurpassing beauty and strength that merely to look upon it was to become enchanted. Across His knees lay His sword, a master-crafted blade like no other ever foraged by the hand of man. Pyrotechnic flames prowled along its length, shifting restlessly as they waited to be unleashed upon whatever foe the Emperor deigned to do battle with. Corax was torn between two dueling desires: one simply insisted he stand and bask for an eternity in the beatific presence of his Emperor without speech or thought; the other urged him to abandon all propriety, fall at his Father’s feet, clutch Him about the knees and give lament to all the woes he had suffered in the last twelve hours.

For He had come; his beloved Lord had returned at last. He had departed the Imperial Palace on far-off Terra in response to Horus’ treachery and would now bring His fallen sons to heel. The Raven Guard would be saved, as would the Salamanders and Iron Hands Legions. Their loyalty would be well rewarded and a new Warmaster would be crowned. The Great Crusade would continue and the Emperor’s grand dream would be fulfilled. All would be well and all manner of things would be well. The Emperor had returned and would set things aright. Perhaps when the traitors had been put down He would elect to remain and lead them once more. Perhaps there would be no need for a new Warmaster. There would be only Him – Him and those loyal among His sons with Him. None would be able to stand before their combined might; with the disloyal elements purged from the Imperial war machine the galaxy would be claimed for humanity at last and the banner of the Lord of Lighting would fly over every human-ruled world. An eternity of glory and conquest stretched before Corax with no end in sight. And when it did finally end Corax would return to Deliverance as a conquering hero of a newly-united Imperium and dedicate some time committing to record the philosophical and political insights of his mentors and teachers, adding their wisdom to the great store of human learning and achievement.

Exhausted and enraptured in equal measure, trapped between standing and adoring or falling and weeping, the Ravenlord was given no chance to do either. For at that moment the Emperor spoke and Corax’s world was unmade.

“My son, what have you done?” The deep resonating voice, rich and commanding, carried an undertone of anger that nearly stopped the Ravenlord’s hearts.

“I…my Lord?” Corax looked down, realizing belatedly he was carrying something in his arms. It was his brother Lorgar, still impaled and writhing upon his lightning claws. For a few seconds Corax had completely forgotten about his existence and the sentence he had been on the brink of carrying out. His brother’s breathing was labored and his gold skin had taken on the pallor of a corpse. “Help me, Father,” the once-chastised Bearer of the Word begged, the blood now flowing at a trickle from his mouth. “Save me…please…”

With a grimace of disgust Corax tore his claws free of his brother’s weighty bulk, causing even more damage to Lorgar’s body in the extracting then had been inflicted during the eviscerating. Clutching at the ruin of his stomach the defeated traitor-primarch hunched over the deck mewling and whining, staining the priceless gold-plated floor with his unworthy blood. Corax raised the sizzling talons to his eyes and deactivated them, quickly checking them over for faults or damages. Satisfied he sheathed them, then with a swift savage kick to the face he sent Lorgar sprawling onto his back. Meeting his Father’s gaze once more the Ravenlord planted a booted foot upon his brother’s gore-coated chestplate and saluted the Emperor of Mankind in the manner of a victorious general.

“I have brought one of my treasonous brothers to heel, Father. Even now our Legions butcher each other on the sands of Isstvan V. Many of Your sons have abetted Horus’ treachery and have raised their hands against You. The Raven Guard remains loyal, as do I. We must strike now before my sons are further destroyed. Ferrus Manus and Vulkan are also suffering greatly for their loyalty to the Imperium. But You have returned, Father, and together we will bring my false brothers into account for their crimes. I am yours to command. What is Your will?”

The Emperor said nothing. The look on His face (insofar as Corax could descry it) was one of complete disbelief, as if his loyal son had just spewed out a babble of incomprehensible information in the manner of a malfunctioning servitor blurting out corrupted data streams. Corax felt his hearts go still. A deep unidentifiable dread took hold of him. Surely his Father knew what dire actions were transpiring on the surface of Isstvan? Why else would He have come, if not to personally deal with the threat poised by Horus and his followers? A wet gargling noise broke the silence. Corax glanced down at Lorgar. His brother was gazing up at him and laughing, the sound made hideous as it escaped through bubbling blood and shattered teeth. The light began to dim as the Emperor veiled His measureless psychic aura. No longer bedazzled by his Father’s golden radiance Corax beheld what the Master of Mankind’s overwhelming presence had obscured. Terror rose in an engulfing wave to smother him; he staggered back a few steps, slowly shaking his head, not wanting to believe what he saw.

“No… _no_ …”

“Do You see, Father? Do you see the madness that afflicts Your shadow-skulker? Look at what he has done to Lorgar, your most devoted son. Witness the destruction wrought by the Raven Guard against their brother-Legions. Should not such acts warrant the highest censure? Will not you Yourself pass judgment upon him, seeing as he will not submit to mine?”

Standing at the Emperor’s right hand, huge and imperious, armored in green and holding his Worldbreaker power maul, Warmaster Horus Lupercal, the chosen son and blackest of traitors, regarded the Ravenlord with hard-controlled fury and barely-disguised disgust. With his free gauntlet resting on their Father’s arm he bent to whisper into the Emperor’s ear, his words grave and sorrowful, the very image of a dutiful son informing a much-loved father of a dreadful truth certain to cause him great grief.

“And everyone thinks _I’m_ the crazy one…” Crouching at the Emperor’s left, his midnight-blue armor clean and free of its usual adornment of human skull-trophies, Konrad Curze leered at Corax through even white teeth, his black eyes glittering with delight as he drank in Corax’s growing dread. Standing close beside him, his elfin beauty undiminished by the murderous glare stamped upon his perfect face, Fulgrim of the Emperor’s Children Legion fingered the hilt of his sword as he suppressed the desire to spring at the Ravenlord. At Horus’ right Mortarion and Perturabo nodded their agreement with the Warmaster’s counsel, their eyes hard and pitiless. Next to Fulgrim Angron growled and spat in contempt, clenching and unclenching his fists as he fought to contain his wrath. Lorgar continued to laugh his wet gargling laugh as he struggled to pull himself to his feet, assisted by the helmed Alpharius. They were all there, all the traitor primarchs who’d come to the Isstvan system, both those Corax, Vulkan and Ferrus had initially been tasked to defeat and those who had betrayed and ambushed them at the Urgall Depression, all gathered at their Father’s side as if nothing had happened, as if it were perfectly right and natural for them to be there. The assembled superhuman demigods fixed the Lord of Ravens with gazes ranging in expression from rage to contempt to disbelief. Corax took a few shaking steps towards the Emperor, his now-trembling hands held out imploringly, hot tears beginning to streak his pale cheeks.

“Father…I…I am not mad; You are in danger. Horus has turned against the Imperium. So have Lorgar, Curze, Fulgrim and the rest. They are traitors, one and all. My Legion is going to be annihilated if You do not –”

 **+Silence+** the Emperor’s psychic command was so powerful Corax’s tongue cleaved to the roof of his mouth and his jaws slammed shut with such force his molars cracked; blood gushed anew from his broken nose and he reeled like a drunken mortal, staggered almost to his knees by the sheer force of his Father’s order.

The Master of Mankind arose from His throne, cloaking Himself in solar majesty once more. He towered above them all, the essence of all humanity distilled and contained within a single imperishable form and guided by a single indomitable will. The Emperor swept His flaming sword in Corax’s direction, and the expression on His face was so terrible in its grief and anger that Corax would have driven his claws into his own eyes rather than endure such a look leveled at him. A flare of golden energy erupted from the sword’s point, striking Corax in the center of his breastplate, knocking him off his feet and obliterating the winged raven-skull insignia that adorned it into molten slurry.

 _"Hold him."_ At their Father’s spoken command Curze and Perturabo stepped forward, their faces alight with murderous intent. Before Corax could recover one pair of the Night Haunter’s lighting claws buzzed to life against his throat while the second imbedded themselves in Corax’s left wrist, punching through his vembrace and into the flesh and bone beneath. Perturabo stomped down on the Ravenlord’s right wrist, putting his entire weight into the motion, cracking armor and grinding the crushed limb into the deckplate with excessive force. Corax barely registered the pain, he had eyes only for his Father; the Emperor advanced upon him, sword raised as the other primarchs gathered in a loose circle about their fallen brother. Horus shadowed the Emperor, walking respectfully behind his sire, the Worldbreaker resting casually over one shoulder.

Corax did not even attempt to fight off his brothers. The terror and despair that clutched and tore at his hearts was so monumental that any other being than a primarch would have perished under the psychological strain. Pinned immobile to the deck he could only watch in helpless agony as the Emperor approached, resplendent and terrible, His face grim and resolute. Had Corax’s hands been free he would have ripped out his own throat. There could be nothing worse in all the universe than this. His Father, for whom he had conquered worlds in the hope of a brighter future, whom he had served loyally and faithfully on a thousand hellish battlefields, was going to execute His loyal nineteenth son in the presence of the very traitors who sought to overthrow Him. Desperate to warn the Emperor Corax strained against his captors, struggling to speak through locked jaws as his Father loomed over him, fire swirling eagerly about His peerless blade, heedless of where the true treat lay. “Keep still, little raven,” hissed Curze, his abyssal eyes shining with fiendish delight. “Your sins have caught up with you at last. Soon there will be three empty plinths on Terra instead of two. Do give our lost brothers the Night Haunter’s sincerest regards.”

The Master of Mankind dropped down to one knee beside Corax and raised His sword double-handed, resting the tip of the weapon over the Ravenlord’s primary heart. He no longer appeared angry or grieved; now He was merely wearied, though unwavering in His resolution. That sight was the most torturous of all; Corax would have sooner cast himself into the warp rather then be a source of such pain to his Father. _This is not happening; this cannot be happening!_ Corax felt his thoughts begin to unravel. He was entering a state of panic, though he did not realize it. _Do not do this, Father! I am loyal! I am Your faithful son! Heed me, Father! Father!_ He wished for oblivion, for annihilation, to die before he was slain so as to spare himself and the Emperor the horror of his execution.

“As I have made you, so will I unmake you, false son.” The Emperor’s words was soft and low and seemed to fill Corax’s mind like a clarion bell tolling out the doom of all things. “By mine own hand thou art ended. This duty I take willingly upon myself, in recognition of my failure. Number Nineteen, _be thou finished.”_

Somehow, impossibly, Corax’s eyes were drawn away from his Lord’s radiant face and the death His blazing eyes promised; somehow, impossibly, they came to rest upon Horus, still standing a ways behind the Emperor and observing their Father intently. The Worldbreaker was no longer resting idly over his shoulder; the Warmaster now gripped the activated power maul firmly in both gauntlets. Horus noticed Corax staring at him over their Father’s bent shoulder. The chosen son smiled. The traitor son raised the Worldbreaker high over the Emperor’s head. Time slowed. Seconds became centuries of horror as Corax and his Father each hung balanced on the knife-edge between life and death. Something broke deep within the Ravenlord. Triumph flashed in Horus’ eyes.

“Death to the False Emperor.”

_Father!_

Horus swung his maul. The Emperor drove His sword into Corax’s heart. There was Light, and then there was Darkness; there was agony, and then there was emptiness. Corax awoke, and the shadows were waiting to welcome him once more. The loyal primarch screamed and roared and raged in the swirling sea of darkness he could not escape. Curze laughed and tittered and hissed in the reeking shadows of his private chambers as he turned over the last oh-so-familiar tarot card. Then he, too, started to scream as the visions tore into his mind once more. Worlds burned; millions died; the thirsting gods laughed. Night fell and kept on falling, swallowing both Night Haunter and Ravenlord, devouring the loyal and the traitor alike. Seated on the Golden Throne of Terra, the Emperor of Mankind flinched as a sudden brief jab of familial psychic pain pierced His besieged mind. A single drop of blood fell from His right nostril. Then a single tear slipped from His right eye. Then the moment passed and His eternal struggle resumed unabated. Konrad Curze collapsed to the floor howling and snarling ineligibly, and in his holding cell Corvus Corax again moaned aloud the only word that truly mattered to a primarch.

_"Father..."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this chapter was longer then the first two, but for the sake of story-flow I didn't want to break it into two chapters. 
> 
> The conversation between Corax and Lorgar is canon and was taken from 'The First Heretic' novel by Aaron Dembski-Bowden (except the last part were Corax commands Lorgar to die). And yes, Lorgar really did head-butt Corax's face multiple times when he started to loose the fight.


	4. IV

**The Apothecary's Observations II / An Ending of Shadows / Two Brothers Sundered**

**VI.**

It was no easy thing, violating and bewitching the mind of a primarch.

Kartar Zurakil was dead, along with two other Librarians from the seventeenth and forty-sixth companies. The Ravenlord was becoming increasingly difficult to contain and restrain via psychic means. Things had started going to the warp after some genius – likely Sevatar – had postulated the idea to Curze that manipulated memories and dreams featuring the Emperor Himself repaying Corax’s loyalty and sacrifices with censure and death by His own hand would be a perfect way to inflict the maximum amount of demoralization and despair upon the Nineteenth Legion’s primarch. Since the Night Lords’ First Captain was the only legionary Curze occasionally deigned to listen to, the psychic assault had been permitted.

Privately Jarlak Haffkar had been against the act (not that he had any say in the matter). Mind manipulation of that magnitude had a habit of backfiring if not properly handled. Zurakil had thought he could pull it off, seeking, perhaps, to win Curze’s favor in the process. Haffkar had no clear idea what, exactly, the four volunteer pyskers had collectively fabricated inside the captive primarch’s mind, but by the time it ended Zurakil and two of the others were dead, having each suffered a massive stroke at the same instant. Seconds later Corax’s primary heart had gone into sudden cardiac arrest, something the Apothecary hadn’t thought possible for a primarch to suffer but easy enough for the medicae response team to treat. The Night Haunter hadn’t been present to witness the event or its aftermath (the rumor was he had sequestered himself in his chambers and was allowing no one but Shang entry) and no fresh orders had been issued regarding the captive. Another Librarian had taken Zurakil’s place as primary shadow-weaver, but something had changed and no longer did the Eighth Legion’s psykers vie for the privilege of testing their gifts against their gene-sire’s imprisoned brother. Soon Corax would need to be fully awoken before he eventually tore his mind free of the psychic shackles. Haffkar wondered idly what Curze planned to do with him then – offer him to Horus as a battle-prize to prove the Legion's eternal loyalty? Present him to his gene-sons as a defeated and broken man to further their pain and humiliation? Give him to the Night Lords to do with as they pleased? It seemed like such a waste to simply leave him chained in an isolation cell, but if it was the Night Haunter’s will that he be left to rot, none in the Legion could gainsay him.

The Ravenlord’s flesh had steadily mended, the slashes and lacerations knitting themselves closed with near-supernatural thoroughness, leaving behind a tapestry of prominent scarring under the dried blood caking his skin. The internal injuries and broken bones would take longer to fully heal unassisted, but it was only a matter of time before the primarch would be whole again and when his strength returned the threat he potentially posed would grow exponentially. A part of Haffkar wished Curze would just slay Corax and have done with it. As long as he still drew breath the loyal son would remain a danger to every Night Lord legionary aboard the _Nightfall_ , Curze included. Corax was an assassin, a lord of darkness, a night hunter easily on par with Curze himself. Even in defeat he still inspired a certain measure of awe and fear. As he monitored his charge the Apothecary was still struck by the similarities between the Ravenlord and the Night Haunter, both in physical resemblance and in attack style. They could have so easily been twins. Perhaps the False Emperor had regarded them as such: they had been His hidden pair of backup knives – one cruelly designed for agonized flaying, the other skillfully fashioned for quiet heart-skewering. Curze had always maintained that his choices and actions were essentially outside his control because his Father had deliberately designed him to be a terrorizer and a monster. He could not escape his cruel nature because it was inborn, because fate had willed it so. In the end, the fault was entirely the Emperor's. Now Curze considered himself beyond his Father’s reach or command. Could Corax be made to believe the same? Would Curze attempt to win him over to the Warmaster’s cause? The Night Haunter had not visited his brother for weeks. Perhaps he no longer cared what happened.

The sound of the thick bulkhead door grinding open quickly broke Heffkar out of his revive. As if to belie his thoughts the primarch himself stalked into the cell, a familiar waft of fetid air accompanying him. Curze looked even worse then ever, his gaunt face drawn and haggard behind a dark curtain of filthy unkempt hair, his artificer armor (which he had been living in since he had fled the Cheraut system after assaulting Rogal Dorn) unpolished and stained with blood and viscera both old and fresh. Haffkar saluted him promptly and gave his report. Curze barely acknowledged his words; instead he stared intently at his brother, observing for himself the healing that had transpired in his absence. He seemed to be trying to make up his mind about something. Suddenly he whirled on the Apothecary and it took all of the Night Lord’s conditioning not to shrink away from his own gene-father.

 _“Get out,”_ the Night Haunter rasped, his voice brittle and strained. “Report to your commander and take the witch with you. I will speak to my brother alone, face to face. No more shadow-play.” The last four words were half-whispered, as if to himself.

To show hesitation or question the primarch’s orders now would be fatal. Without replying Haffkar saluted again and left the cell, guiding the exhausted, stumbling Librarian along with him. In the darkened corridor beyond two members of Curze's elite Alramentar bodyguard clad in their Terminator power-armor stood guard on either side of the door. Haffkar was only slightly reassured by their presence. If Corax broke free of the chains and attacked Curze how much damage could he inflict before they could halt him? What if Corax somehow got loose and escaped into the lower decks? Haffkar mentally pointed the barrel of his boltgun at the mounting pile of worries in his mind, blew them to pieces, and marched purposefully away as per Curze’s command. Corax was no longer his concern. The cell door - itself seven feet thick - closed with a heavy clang, sealing the Night Haunter and the Ravenlord alone together within. _It is not my concern,_ Haffkar insisted firmly to himself as his swift strides carried him further away and the red eye-lenzes of the Terminators glinted in the shadows behind him.

**VII.**

Corvus Corax was on the move once more, stalking through the endless ever-expanding darkness, hunting diligently for a weakness, for a thinness, in the ocean of shadows. Once the shock and horror of being sanctioned by his Father in a twisted dream that could have only been the work of a sadistic – and powerful – enemy psyker had worn off, the scales had fallen from the Ravenlord’s eyes and he finally understood what was happening to him. Armed with this knowledge he had shunted his pain, grief and guilt into the nethermost regions of his mind, allowing resolution and anger to once more take the fore. Unlike the raging wrath that had briefly (and uselessly) consumed him during Curze’s first attack, the breed of anger he nourished now was of a more colder, more calculated sort. His mind was not completely his own; he was being emotionally and mentally manipulated by gifted legionaries who had violated the Emperor’s Edict and were utilizing their powers against him.

Unable to trust the legitimacy of his memories or emotions Corax directed all his willpower and mental fortitude away from pointless questions and unprofitable introspection and focused intently on surveying his environment. The shadows, once so malignant and aggressive in their obscuration, seemed to have diminished in both potency and substance. Sounds – muted unintelligible voices – hovered just beyond the edge of his hearing. The Ravenlord felt as if any moment the darkness would dissipate and he would finally learn the truth of his predicament instead of being at the mercy of undeserving taunts and false accusations conjured by traitors. Physically he was feeling stronger, though his bones still ached and his flesh trembled with the sporadic pains of still-mending injuries. He was armorless and weaponless, but he drew strength in remembering that he had once organized and spearheaded a successful moon-wide revolt without his claws or his armor or even his Legion. Corax had destroyed one prison; if needed he would destroy one again, and woe to those who assumed they could hold the Shadowed Lord against his will. His intellect and bare hands would serve him if nothing else could. And his Father's secret gift, of course. There would always be that, the one thing he could rely upon when all else failed him.

The first two signs of reality reestablishing itself around the Ravenlord came one after the other in rapid succession; Corax discovered that he had stopped moving – or rather he became aware that he had never been moving at all. Immediately after this realization struck, he became cognizant of light bleeding in through the weakening shadows, a dim sickly pale-white light that nonetheless burned his ebony eyes after they had beheld nothing for so long but the enveloping witch-dark. As the shadows faded and dissolved his enhanced senses began to process more of his true surroundings: the air he dragged into his raw nostrils was heavily recycled, stale and laced with unsavory odors. He could hear the distant pulsing of active warp drives and feel the micro-tremors of a vast superstructure under stress vibrating under the balls of his bare feet. His wrists throbbed in dull agony and his entire body felt exposed, stretched and hollowed out. His stomach was completely empty and his mouth and throat were so dry each breath felt like it was being drawn in through a sieve full of ash. But above all these sensations and discomforts ruled a familiar scent Corax recognized immediately: the charnel stench of unburied corpses and rancid vitae, coupled with the ragged hiss of air being sucked in between blackened fangs, could only emanate from one creature. Corax's hearts went cold as realization dawned and hope foundered. It hadn’t all been a complete illusion. A truth had lurked amid the lies. Then he hardened his resolve and forced his eyes to accept the light and the being it revealed, the demigod who crouched before him, watching him with eyes like stagnant pools of rotten blood, his black gaze brimming with madness, pain and contempt all born of perfect despair.

 _“Curze,”_ the Ravenlord snarled, pronouncing the name like the curse it was.

“Corax,” the Night Haunter hissed in return as he slowly rose to his full height, the final wisps of shadow caressing his angular form withering into nothingness. He forced a smile. It was one of the most sickening things the Raven Guard primarch had ever seen. “I am so glad you’re finally awake, brother...”

**VIII.**

Curze himself heaved the cell door shut after the departing Apothecary and Librarian and then stood for a few seconds braced against the bulkhead, his elongated back bent, his armored fingers clawing the reinforced plasteel. Blood flowed from his nose, mingling with the saliva dribbling from his clenched teeth. None save Sevatar would dare disturb him. It was just the Night Haunter and his slowly stirring brother. With a strangled cry of pain Curze sank to his knees as a fresh wave of muscule-seizures shook him. The intertwining threads of the five different fates Corax faced flashed across his mind's eye, each as certain and likely to occur as the other. Often Curze could spot the true future among the other, less defined alternatives. With Corax all five were just as equal, just as possible. They were also utterly contradicting and conflicting. In the first, Corax died over a period of months as Curze subjected him to slow and artful excruciation with the aid of his most skilled torturers, killing him piece by piece until the Ravenlord begged him for the final release. The second saw him ripping out Corax’s throat in a fit of rage and then forcing the surviving Raven Guard prisoners to feed on their gene-sire’s desecrated remains while the Salamanders and Iron Hands legionaries looked on in horror. Another featured a naked, broken Corax kneeling in chains before Horus in the throne-room of the _Vengeful Spirit_ , handed over as an offering to the ascendant Warmaster to make ritual use of. Yet another prophesied the Ravenlord’s cunning escape and the subsequent hunt that left scores of Night Lords dead and Curze stalking his brother without hope deep within the bowls of the _Nightfall_. The final vision was the most confusing and vague, but no less real than the others. Under a meat-red warp-torn sky a vast flock of phantom ravens formed of living shadows shrieked and dove as one upon an unseen foe below, seeking to fulfill a promise made long ago.

The visions clashed and roiled within the Night Haunter’s head, each one trying to ascend to dominance, each one dependent upon his next course of action. Curze crawled over to the wall across from his brother and crouched there, biting his lips and rocking back and forth, torn between decision and indecision. Could there not be other futures, other fates? There was no future depicting Corax turning willingly from the Emperor; nor was there one in which he managed to kill Curze as he had sworn to do during the dream-hunt. That was no comfort, though; Curze knew Corax would never betray their Father, just as he knew he was doomed to die in some distant point in time by the Emperor’s order for simply being what his false Father had created him to be. Grimacing, the Night Haunter spat a stream of acidic spittle and watched a patch of deckplate sizzle before him. Doubt, hesitation, hope…these were the crutches of the weak and the deluded. Curze had risen above them. His very survival had depended on it. If no one future emerged triumphant and fixed in the maelstrom of possibilities then none of them could be true, and certainly not all at the same time; if none were true, then the Ravenlord’s genuine fate had yet to be reveled to him. Having absolved himself for failing to choose a specific course of action, Curze let his thoughts drift as he watched the Ravenlord stir and awaken. He had much he wanted to tell his doppelgänger-brother, much he wanted to discuss. Perhaps over the course of their conversation a new future would manifest itself. Or perhaps he would loose his temper and tear out Corax’s throat, or subject him to excruciation, or give him over to Horus. Unlike his, the loyalist primarch’s fate was not fixed – yet.

Like a sleeper awakening from a deep and lengthy dream Corax rose from his mental bed of shadows, the dim lumen causing him to blink as its weak light stabbed into eyes long grown accustomed to seeing only darkness. He scented the air like the perfect hunting beast he was, listening to the sounds of the Eighth Legions’ capital ship, wincing ever so minutely from the pain of the spiked manacles digging into his wrists, taking note of the constant tremors of the cold deck under his feet. Curze waited, watching his brother and rival with both admiration and envy. What if they truly _had_ been twins, the Emperor’s assassin and torturer respectively, sharing between them one warp-taken far-flung cradle-engine? What if they had crashed on sunless Nostramo together, _two_ primarchs, _two_ demigods united against the planet’s sinful and depraved populace, each guarding and protecting the other instead of just the single isolated son struggling to bring about peace and order alone? What if there had been a fellow night haunter, another superhuman equal, a second Dark King to crusade in their Father's name while he remained behind to rule over the world they had jointly tamed, ensuring order and justice forever held dominion? What if –?

The Night Haunter mentally clawed apart the path his thoughts were heading down as a look of revulsion and hatred twisted across Corax’s pale careworn features. The Raven Guard primarch’s night-black eyes fixed upon him, two perfect pools of living shadow in which lurked a void-cold anger that was as final and inescapable as Curze’s own unalterable death.

 _“Curze,”_ Corax spoke his name as if it were nothing but a vile curse and not the name their Father had bestowed upon him from before his very birth.

“Corax,” Curze replied as he pulled himself painfully to his feet, the ever-warring visions tugging at the edges of his consciousness, forever threatening to drown his mind once again within nightmarish scenes of carnage, torment and slaughter. He smiled forcefully, knowing it to be a meaningless gesture. “I am so glad you're finally awake, brother. There are so many things we need to discuss.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another shorter chapter, but it all has to do with story-flow. I now honestly don't know how long this fic is going to be. I'm really enjoying writing it and I'm eager to see where it will lead before the end. 
> 
> Next chapter will be very dialogue-heavy. Primarchs interacting with primarchs (or the Emperor) are my favorite thing about the Horus Hersey books and I wish there were more of their interactions in the canon. Hope you all are still enjoying the story. Constructive criticism welcomed.


	5. V.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. I wrote a few other stories to get them out of my head so I could focus on this one better. Hopefully Chaper 6 will be written on a quicker time-scale (I work full-time so I can't promise anything). 
> 
> Lots of dialogue in this chapter. Curze isn't trying to get Corax to join with Horus or seduce him to the side of Chaos. He's actually trying to drive Corax to do something even worse, in a way. 
> 
> CW for one-sided physical violence, sadism, and humiliation (please heed the tags) and for Curze's nihilistic outlook on life (if you are depressed or suicidal).

**Traitor vs Loyalist / Dark Truths / Humiliation  
**

**IIX**.

“Never call me ‘brother’ again, Curze. You forfeited that privilege the minute your legionaries turned their guns on mine.” Curze cocked his head, amusement glinting in his eyes. Corax glared defiantly at the Night Haunter and was a pleased to see the traitor primarch’s twisted smile falter and fade. It felt good to fully be awake – to be aware, in the truest sense of the word, again. After so long spent floundering aimlessly in suffocating darkness and being plagued by demoralizing visions it was a relief to finally be able to take proper stock of his situation now that the shadow-play had been dispensed with. Curze sucked in a hissing breath, than bowed theatrically at the waist, his long tangled hair swishing about his corpse-pale face. “Welcome aboard the _Nightfall_ , o Lord of Ravens – though I hope you do have wits enough to realize that you are _not_ here as an honored guest.”

“The possibility never entered my mind,” Corax rasped dryly; his throat was so raw the act of speaking produced the sensation of being forced to swallow crushed razor-blades. Had he been screaming? No matter now. Bunching his pain-stiffened but serviceable muscles the Ravenlord heaved against the chains that kept him suspended on tip-toe from the deck above, putting his entire body-weight into the act. Ignoring the cruel bite of the spiked manacles and the grinding of still-broken bones he tested each separate length of chain, searching for some flaw or defect in their make or design. They were nearly as thick as his own forearms, foraged of high-grade adamantium. Both chains held firm – for now. Curze tittered in amusement.

“I tested them myself, you know. You cannot escape. You are in the most secure holding cell in the most secure region of this most good ship. You are not going anywhere – not alive, at least. It is fitting that Father’s loyal jailbird should end his days the same way he began them: imprisoned, captive, his freedom curtailed, his liberty denied. You will find me a most exacting jailer, brother; and my sons the most attentive of guards. Behave yourself, and I might be inclined to show you some little mercies here and there.”

“And when I secure my freedom, traitor, you will find me the most vexing of escapees. I will kill as many of your sadistic legionaries as I can, then I will come for you, _brother_. I am the Emperor’s Shadow – and I always will be; nothing can change that: not you, not your sons, not Lorgar nor Horus himself.”

Curze sighed and raked back his blood-matted hair with armored fingers, shaking his head in exaggerated exasperation. “You don’t get it, Corax. I have no intent of trying to win you over to the Warmaster’s cause. He’s just as deluded as the Emperor, thinking he can build a better, more just, more truthful Imperium while still refusing to account for base, unredeemable human nature. All our brothers are deluded, whether they are loyal to Father or to Horus. Right now, though, you are the most deluded of them all. You are _my_ prisoner, Corax, and this is _my_ realm, my star-bound kingdom of pain and despair. Here there are no delusions; here – and only here – there are truths; truths I will teach to all, you included.”

“And what are these truths, Curze?” asked Corax wearily. "What can I possibly learn from you that will change anything?"

The Night Haunter shuddered with a perfect blend of elation and anticipation. He stepped closer to the Ravenlord and raised his right gauntlet. Slowly the lightning claws slid into being, keener than cold starlight, sharper then an eagle’s talons. Curze did not activate them, but rested the blades against Corax’s chest, the tips feather-light upon his skin. Curze licked his thin lips, his black eyes bright with the strain of madness and the throes of revelation. “The first truth, brother, is that you are entirely at my mercy. Your future, your fate, is mine alone to decide upon. I have many options to choose from. But I can tell you still have hope, despite all that befell you and your Legion on Isstvan V. Hope that you will regain your liberty. Hope that you still might somehow prove yourself useful to Father before the end.” The Night Haunter shook his head again. “This is the first truth you must be taught: that hope is dead.”

Curze wrapped his free arm around the Ravenlord’s neck, drawing Corax’s face close to his own. Even when forced to stand on tip-toe the Night Haunter still stood a few inches taller then Corax. Curze had to bend slightly to keep their eyes level. His breath smelled as if every fresh grave in the galaxy had been desecrated, every decomposing body unearthed and left to lie exposed under an open sky. Gently Curze drew his claws down the Ravenlord’s chest, pausing when he reached Corax’s abdomen. Pressure was applied. There was the faintest jab of pain. Corax’s hearts began to pound faster, his blood roaring in his ears as battle stimulants and pain-inhibitors flooded his system in response to the immediate threat of assault and injury. A quick glance down at his body earlier had revealed dozens of fresh livid scars from the recent injuries inflicted on him while he had been under psychic restraint. His flesh was still raw, still sensitive enough to remember the feel of the weapon that had worked such mutilations upon him. Unable to help himself the Ravenlord flinched at the prick of the claws, cringing back involuntarily from his brother. The Night Haunter tightened his grip around Corax's neck and moved in closer until their bodies were almost pressed together. The reek of his gore-stained armor was almost overwhelming. Curze's breathing quickened and Corax mentally braced for the coming agony.

“Abandon hope, Corax. Let it die. No one is coming to save you; you cannot even save yourself. Not from what I could do…” Curze could not keep the eagerness from his words. He increased the pressure. The claws pierced into Corax's flesh. The captive primarch's jaws clenched but he made no sound. With a grin Curze pushed the blades deep into his brother's stomach, mimicking the same attack angle Corax had utilized against Lorgar. The Ravenlord kept perfectly still and allowed a portion of his mind to disassociate from its surroundings, keeping the remaining part focused on controlling his breathing. He met the Night Haunter's gaze and held it, his own eyes betraying nothing. Curze re-angled the claws as he twisted them with an agonizing slowness. Their physical devastation felt like razor-edged ice and fanged jaws of fire, despite the absence of a disrupter field. Blood flowed freely from the new wounds, drenching his groin and running down the insides of his legs. Corax did not move, did not speak, did not even breathe. The two primarchs stared at one another, neither blinking. Curze held the blades immobile for what seemed like an eternity, the conveyed message unmistakable and absolute. Then, with the same slowness, he withdrew them, pausing to run his tongue along their crimson-wet edges before resettling the tips against the Ravenlord's chest once more.

“You see, brother? You are mine; no longer the commander of a Legion, no longer Father’s knife in the dark. You are mine, and that is all. Hope is dead. Accept it – you will last longer that way.”

“I am not like you, Curze” Corax rasped, wishing he could spit a stream of acid into the Night Haunter rapturous face. His mouth was beyond dry. He had been without water for far too long. “If I was doomed to succumb to despair I would have broken on Isstvan. I may haunt the night as you do, but I do not scorn the light; when I met the Emperor for the first time His bright radiance did not horrify or burn me. On that day I learned I was a son born of His light, that I was destined to bare that light into the void to share with those who dwelt in the long darkness. I walk in both worlds, Curze – the darkness and the light are both alike to me.” 

Curze let go of his neck, straightened, and sank his armored fingers into Corax’s scalp, gathering up a fistful of black hair. He tilted the Ravenlord’s head back until Corax was forced to stare into the torturous light of the cell’s sole lumen; as dim as it was it still seared the primarch’s dark-adapted eyes with its sickly pale illumination.

“Is that so? A great pity. You have just confessed to being blinded, brother. If I were capable of feeling pity for any being other then myself, I would feel pity for you. You are oblivious to the truth – your loyalty to Father and the Imperium blinds you, bedazzles you, renders you compliant,” Curze sniggered at his own joke and let go of the Ravenlord’s hair. Corax looked away, blinking rapidly, trying to clear away the glowing aftereffect of the light seared onto his retinas. Curze grinned at the sight. “And behold, there was a great Light! And the Raven did bow and swear unto it undying fealty! You were saying, brother?”

“This is getting tiresome, Curze,” the Raven Guard primarch growled, still keenly aware of the claw-tips pressing against his flesh. “Do you intend to enlighten me with some knowledge of merit? Or are you just in love with the sound of your own voice?” Curze loosed an ugly snarl and backhanded him sharply across the face with his free hand, his plated knuckles tearing open the Ravenlord’s cheek and resplitting his lips. “Do not mock me, Corax! I told you that hope is dead, and that you would be best served by abandoning it. Now I shall give you the truths as to the reasons why.” The Night Haunter cleared his phlegm-laced throat and spat to one side, preparing to monologue. Corax kept silent. The Night Lords' primarch wanted to talk, that much was clear; it was what he might want to do after he had run out of words that had the Ravenlord on edge.

“The truth is Death, dear brother,” Curze hissed, his blades maintaining their pressure on Corax’s chest. “Not just the death of the individual, but the death of grand ideals, of great goals, of vast star-spanning empires. There is no escape, Corax. Death is all around us; death hunts down and devours all that exists, both that which is concrete and that which is abstract. Father condemned billions to death to build the Imperium and, subsequently, Horus shall do likewise to see Him cast from His throne. I was designed by Father to be Death’s perfect agent, as were you. Between the two of us and our Legions – how many millions did we usher into Death’s jaws to further the Imperial cause? Yet, now that Father’s unrealizable dream is threatened, how many more will die to both defend it and see it destroyed? The moment the Imperium of Man became a reality it became subject to death. It rose from Terra and stormed the stars riding upon Death, but it was not Death’s master. That is an important truth, Corax. I should know. I have foreseen my death – I've witnessed the manner of my own end. Foresight is one of Father's unwelcome gifts I must suffer. I have seen multiple versions of your death, none of which are pleasant. I grew up listening to Death’s myriad lullabies. I fed Death countless criminals and sinners in order to bring peace and order to Nostramo. Then, when Nostramo betrayed me and poisoned my Legion, I sentenced it to death in turn. There is no defying it. To exist is to die, Corax. Death shall have dominion over all, and of its dominion there shall be no end."

Curze paused as a tremor shook him. A tick had developed under his left eye. He drew his claws upwards and began stroking Corax's exposed throat. One good thrust would end the Ravenlord's life. The Night Haunter gave a disarming shrug. “So then. In such a reality, why have hope, or strive towards a better future? If everything gets destroyed in the end why bother enforcing your will upon the world? That's what Father tried to do; that was what He made us to do. All for naught. The Great Crusade was never going to truly succeed - humanity as a whole is too flawed and base to aspire to such heights. Now thanks to Horus it never will. The alien, the mutant and the rebel will rise and feast on the ruins of Father's Imperium like crows scavenging on a rotting corpse abandoned in a gutter. All our great campaigns, all our hard-won battles, all the purges and exterminations we carried out in the name of Unity, all the works of the Legiones Astartes - all of it will amount to nothing because we live in a galaxy that proclaims such hopes and aspirations anathema to the very workings of the universe. You have been deceived, Corax - by Father and by a false perception of the cosmos itself. This is another great truth I have learned. You must accept it, brother, if you wish to be free of delusion - if you wish to see clearly and not be blinded by a false light.” Curze finally ceased talking and looked at Corax expectantly, a strange mixture of hopelessness, self-pity and yearning blended together on his ashen face. There was something vaguely tragic about him, now; something that might stir another to pity if contemplated for too long.

"Is that all, then?" Corax raised his right leg and flexed it at the knee, his strained muscles crying out in protest. The blood running from his mangled abdomen was struggling to clot and crimson droplets continued to spatter onto the deck. Protected as he was in full battleplate, Curze still instinctively stepped back, as if suspecting some sly attack. The claws withdrew a fraction. Corax repeated the motion with his left leg, careful not to let any hint of pain show on his face. The Night Haunter’s tirade about death was not particularly illuminating. The Ravenlord had slain more then his fair share of foes – indeed, his first proactive act upon crashing on Deliverance as an infant was to break the neck and tear the head off a human guard who had dared to strike at him with a whip. The Raven Guard had conquered and subjugated hundreds of worlds and Corax recalled each life he had ended with the upmost clarity. Battle was something he gloried in, for it was a primarch’s nature to excel in a particular method of warfare and use it to bring judgment and death to the enemies of Mankind. While not as fervent a student of humanity’s past as some of his brothers, Corax knew of no Terran empire in the history of the species that had risen to power without bloodshed or sacrifice. He had a notion that Curze was using this talk of universal death and doomed endeavors to advance something else, something personal and profane, something that only a being completely without hope could advocate. Corax met the Night Haunter’s eyes again and smiled grimly at his brother. For a split second, Curze looked utterly taken aback. The Ravenlord was not known for smiling. Logically he had nothing to smile about.

“I know what you’re trying to do, traitor,” Corax said coolly, speaking the words with effort due to his raw maddeningly dry throat. “I know what you are saying behind your many words about the death of all things. You say I should abandon hope, because in your mind hope has no place in this galaxy. You say I am blinded, because in your mind light is an affront to the dark conclusions you’ve constructed about the universe. You could be right. My position is not favorable. I am at your mercy and my Legion is gone – such is the price I have paid for my loyalty. So be it. It is easy to keep one’s oaths and remain true when all is a blaze of glory and victory, but now that the Warmaster and the rest of you faithless wretches have succumbed to treason and treachery the days of hope and glory have ended. Still, that does not give me leeway to break faith with the Emperor; what manner of son would I be if I forsook Him because the darkness has fallen and all seems hopeless and pointless?"

Corax shook his head, his ebony eyes narrowing, his blatant contempt undisguised. "You were given much Curze, just as all the rest of us. Father did not scorn you or pass you over. The Night Lords’ methods of waging war disgust me, but your Legion had its place in the Crusade and you did your duty. Now you sink your teeth into the very hand that fashioned you and throw in your lot with rebels and usurpers. Why should I heed your words or accept your ‘truths’. Even now you are not being fully truthful with me. If you do not intend for me to bend the knee to Horus then why am I here, alive? I have my theories, but I want to hear it from your own mouth. So stop prattling about death and tell me what you really want from me. Tell me why I am on your ship and not lying dead with my sons on the surface of Isstvan V. Do you even know? Or are you incapable of making rational decisions anymore? Are you as mad as the rumors suggest?”

Curze stood motionless, a tall godlike revenant clad in soiled midnight-blue ceramite. Slowly he lowered his clawed gauntlet to his side. An expression of cold, fathomless well-nourished anger clouded his gaunt features. He had not been angry before, Corax knew. From the time the Ravenlord had opened his eyes the Night Haunter had exhibited a wide range of emotions; he had been smug, condescending, eager, despairing, even gleeful but not genuinely angry. Now he was. That was good. He was more likely to tell the truth in a fit of anger then when gloating over Corax’s perceived powerlessness.

“Why?” Curze hissed softly, a deadly deceptive calm falling upon him. He stepped up to the Ravenlord again, sheathed his claws and gripped Corax by both shoulders as if he had a mind to start shaking him like an errant child. “Why? _Why?_ I detest that word, brother. I despise it. After ‘mercy’ and ‘please’ there is no other word uttered by men or by xenos that never fails to drive me to distraction. When people ask ‘why?’ they reveal their pathetic need for explanations and justifications, as if the universe owes them some sort of apology for being the way it is. There is no ‘why,’ brother. There doesn’t _need_ to be a ‘why.’ Like the universe, I offer no reasons or justifications for my deeds or my actions.” The Night Haunter sized Corax's throat in one hand, the armored fingers clenching around it like a vice. He did not squeeze hard enough to crush Corax's windpipe but applied just enough force to show the captive primarch how easy it would be for him to do so.

“Once, perhaps, I cared about such things, back when I did my ‘duty’ to Father and the Imperium, before I learned that hope is dead and that the cosmos is indifferent to all our glories and woes and that humanity is too flawed to be redeemed. I foresaw it all, Corax. I had visions of an eagle falling in flames from the sky. I saw worlds burning as Legion turned against Legion. I saw Space Marines in midnight-blue gunning down Space Marines in midnight-black. I saw myself exalting in the slaughter at Isstvan, laughing as I all but bathed in the blood of the loyal legionaries. I learned everything was doomed from the very beginning, and in my naivete I tried to warn Fulgrim and Dorn - a doomed endeavor. No one would listen. I doubt you would have listened, if I had come to you, o Lord of Ravens. You were always such a willing follower of Father. Why? _Why?_ Does it matter? It does not. I will not sign your death warrant until you acknowledge this truth. Nothing truly matters, therefore the question 'why?' is redundant. Never ask me 'why?' again, Corax. When hope dies, everything else follows it in a funeral march into the dark. Darkness is our only surety, our only reward. You will see it, in time. In the end, you will know such pain, such grief, that you will deny ever having been a 'son' of the False Light, and on that day you will know and embrace the true Darkness. Only then will death be granted. Until then…”

Curze paused and lifted his head. Releasing Corax he turned to the door. “Let him enter,” he said in the language of now-dead Nostramo (the two primarchs had been conversing in High Gothic). The heavy bulked was hauled open a fraction, just wide enough to allow an unenhanced human male to step through. The serf was cradling a smoky green-hued glass bottle as long as his leg and as wide as his thigh. He was staggered under the weight of it, his pale face drawn with concentration. He seemed to be in passable health and was dressed well enough, but his sweat was laced with the familiar stench of fear and he kept his eyes fixed to the floor, refusing to meet the gaze of his lord. When the bulkhead closed behind him he dropped to his knees out of what appeared to be both exhaustion and fealty. Before he could speak Curze bent down and deftly plucked the bottle out of his grasp by its thick wax-sealed neck. In the primarch’s hand it took on a normal size and proportion. The serf bowed his face to the deck, his body quaking with barely-suppressed panic. The Night Haunter ignored him. He held the bottle before his eyes, examining the liquid contents within with a curious air. Then he turned back to Corax with a smile.

“Looks like Shang did find a bottle after all. I was wondering if I had one left but had no time to go rooting around my chambers looking for it. This prime vintage hails from Chemos and was a parting gift from Fulgrim when I left his tutorage to take my place in the Crusade. Ah, how time passes! Enlightening you is thirsty work, brother. I believe refreshments are in order.”

There was no furniture in the cell, not even a chair for Curze to sit on. He set the bottle down against the far wall before regarding the serf once more. The trembling man did not move or look up. The Night Haunter bent down, hooked two fingers under the collar of his jacket and hauled him upright, then lifted him completely off his feet. The serf uttered a half-suppressed scream as he became airborne and his legs kicked out in instinctive futility. Curze held him aloft before Corax; in the primarch’s grip the man was as small as a child’s rag-doll and just as helpless. Curze grinned as he brought the man's face within inches of the Ravenlord's. Corax’s hearts sank as he wondered what cruelty his mad brother was about to perpetrate.

“Open your eyes, slave, and look at who is before you,” Curze commanded in Low Gothic, his words soft yet menacing. The serf quickly obeyed and found himself staring straight into the haggard face of the captive primarch. The mortal blinked in terror, unable to meet Corax’s gaze no more then he could the Night Haunter’s. “This is my doppelgänger brother, Corvus Corax, the acclaimed Lord of Ravens,” Curze told him in the lofty informative tones of a schola history instructor. “He is the primarch of the Nineteenth Legion Raven Guard, the Shadowed Lord, the Emperor’s dutiful knife in the dark. On his homeworld his people call him ‘the Deliverer.’ Now he is my prisoner. He can deliver no-one, not even himself. Amusing, yes? He was raised in a prison and now he shall die in one. You see his helplessness? You see his wounds? Not even primarchs are beyond the Night Haunter’s reach. I will kill him, but not yet. He needs to learn humility. He needs to learn his place. I can do whatever I wish to him. So can you, little man. Spit on him – go on, he cannot harm you. Spit in his face. Show him how low he has sunk that even baseline wretches such as you can mock him without consequence. Spit on him – he deserves it, and I command it.”

The serf took a deep shuddering breath. There was no malice or ill-will in his expression; his dark eyes were dull and glassy, exposing the mental strain of a prolonged state of fear that had become routine and inescapable. He clearly did not wish to give such an offense but still valued his life enough to not defy his master. The pathetic spatter of spittle struck the lower portion of Corax’s right cheek, its wetness barely registering against his skin. The serf looked away, shaking like a dry leaf in a gale, expecting some form of retaliation. Curze let out a hearty laugh and set the terrified man down on both feet. “Begone now – and let your fellows know that there is no being in the galaxy who stands above the Night Haunter’s judgments.” The slave virtually flung himself at the bulkhead as it cracked open to allow him egress.

Alone once more, Curze snatched up the bottle, breaking the sealing-wax and tearing out the cork with his teeth. Squaring up to Corax he tilted back his head and took a long pull of wine, his Adams-apple bobbling vigorously as he gulped the fermented grape juice down. Corax’s own mouth would have watered at the enticing sight if it hadn’t been so dry; his tongue felt like a lump of scoured sandpaper. At last the Night Haunter paused and looked quizzically at the Ravenlord as if just realizing something. “Are you thirsty, Corax? Would you like a drink? It’s very good, a most perfectly blended vintage. Fulgrim always had such exquisite tastes.”

Corax did not bother dignifying the question with a response. “Too proud to beg, brother?” Curze mocked with a leer. He took another long drink. Wine dribbled down his chin like fresh blood, the scent of it overwhelming Corax’s nostrils. He could not remember his last fluid intake. Soon it would come to a point were he would be biting his own tongue or shredding his own lips just for the feel of something liquid in his mouth. Curze held up the bottle and wagged it in front of the primarch’s face. “Open your mouth, little raven. Open it good and wide like a baby bird and I’ll give you the rest. Come now, I know you want some.” The suggestive insinuation behind the offer was too blatant for Corax to comply and he turned his face away.

“I don't think so…” Curze grabbed his chin and squeezed his jaws open. “I can’t have your voice giving out. Your throat needs lubricating at the very least – how else am I to enjoy your screams?” The Night Haunter rammed the bottle-neck between Corax’s teeth and the potent wine flooded his mouth, burning his dry tongue and raw throat so fiercely that tears spilled involuntarily from the corners of his eyes. After surviving for so long on Isstvan eating nutrient paste and drinking rationed water the strength and richness of the vintage made his head swim and his stomach clench. He choked down five mouthfuls before Curze withdrew the bottle and finished the rest off himself with a flourish. Feeling strangely invigorated Corax kicked out at his brother, infuriated by the indignities had suffered. Curze avoided the strike with ease and repaid the Ravenlord’s daring by smashing the empty bottle in half across his head.

“Now we’re starting to have fun!” the Night Haunter laughed manically as Corax strained to get at him, snarling, his teeth bared, shards of green-hued glass sparkling in the lumen’s light as they scattered from the primarch’s head, leaving a few sizeable pieces embedded in his scalp. Curze backhanded his captive across the face a second time, loosening a few more teeth and further bloodying his lips. “Look at you! Now you’re just acting like a beast! Russ would be envious! Hah! We’re all monsters deep down, under all our intelligence and self-styled nobility. Father created each of us for one purpose only: to terrify and slaughter His foes – nothing more! So how can you hate me, brother? I’m just the tool that does His work the best!”

 _“I’m going to kill you, Curze!”_ Corax roared at the top of his lungs. _“I’m going to kill all your sons!"_

“No, you will not, Corax,” Curze sneered, inwardly rejoicing at the Ravenlord’s temporary loss of control. “I’m not fated to die by your hand. I know this as an empirical fact. You, however…”

Lunging forwards, the Night Haunter drove a fist into Corax’s stomach, tearing into the healing wound his claws had inflicted earlier, pulling the punch short at the last second to avoid burying his entire hand inside his brother's body. The Ravenlord threw back and unleashed a scream of pure unremitting agony, an ear-splitting sound that would have burst the throat and ruptured the vocal cords of any other human, mortal or Astartes. Darkness came crashing down onto him once more and he sagged limply in his chains, all but dead to a world already lost to the Dark. Curze stepped back to admire his handiwork. A long and challenging road lay before the both of them. Corax would not be permitted to greet Death until he abandoned his helpless hope and embraced his own inner monstrousness. The human prisoners and freedom fighters who had raised him had also ruined him along the way, forcing their petty moralities and philosophies upon a being who was their moral superior in every way, unaware that they were defiling the mind of a demigod who was destined to be their master. There was much for Corax to unlearn as there was for him to learn. Curze was confident that he would be broken in the end. The whole ordeal would at least provide him with enough distraction from his own inner miseries for a while.

Not that the visions would ever go away, the primarch thought sourly as blood began to trickle from his nose for the third time that day-cycle. The ticks were also getting worse. Perhaps he would have a vision about Corax in which a new future made itself known.

“Pleasant dreams to us both, brother. This is just the beginning.” Konrad Curze whispered to the unconscious primarch as he left the cell. Unlike Corax he still had a Legion to command and a crusade to organize. The Warmaster had ordered the Eighth to go tweak the Lion's tail and keep the Dark Angels away from Terra for the foreseeable future. A campaign of terror and bloodshed awaited commencing. There was so much to do - Corax might get lonely while he was away. Curze grinned despite himself. The Ravenlord assumed the entire Nineteenth had been wiped out on Isstvan. He thought all his gene-sons were dead, that he was the sole survivor, spared to be Curze's trophy prisoner. Soon he would learn differently. It was going to be quite the surprise. The Night Haunter laughed aloud as he stalked down the shadowed corridor, causing terrified Legion serfs to scurry from his path. Yes, soon it would be time for the the Ravenlord to be reunited with some chicks of his loyal brood. Soon. It would be needlessly cruel to keep father and sons separated for so long a duration. Soon. Soon.


	6. VI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for trippy warp-dreams, mental anguish, blood and torture

**The Raven's Demand / The Armor of Contempt / My Son, My Son**

**IX.**

The sky above him is a perfect unblemished blue. The white sand under his feet is fine and soft. The light of the world’s lone sun is temperate and warm upon his bare skin. The pristine beach stretches for kilometers on either side of him; before him green foam-gilt waves lap gently at the shore, the serine surf breaking within inches of his half-buried toes. Flocks of white sea-gulls circle and cry as they soar above the rising tideline. Corvus Corax extends his arms outwards as if he means to soar out across the tranquil ocean. The fresh salty breeze caresses his battle-scarred body and plays with his thick hair; the primarch tilts his head back and exhales a long sigh of contentment. He will always love the natural world, will forever take delight and solace in the reality of living breathing landscapes. Raised in an artificial man-made environment on an airless prison-moon Corax had never seen a real ocean until he had joined the Great Crusade. The deep primal emotions these vast life-birthing bodies of water invoke never fail to profoundly move him. He stands still on the beach and soaks in the sensations of sight and sound and touch of salt and sand and sea, reveling in this blessed moment of solitary peace and unsoiled beauty. The sun is slowly sinking towards the distant horizon. It is as red as newly shed blood.

As the light wanes and the sea is stained crimson the wind abruptly dies and an uncertain stillness falls. Something hard brushes against Corax’s foot. The primarch looks down. The helm of a Raven Guard legionary lies in the sand at his feet, deposited by the rising surf. Other battlefield detritus quickly joins it. The tideline is now strewn with spent bolt guns and pistols, empty magazines and broken combat knives. Gore-clogged chainblades and shattered power swords protrude from the wet sand in their hundreds but the helmets outnumber them all. Thousands of them litter the beach, their once-active eye-lenzes cracked, each one dented and riven open by savage cataclysmic violence. All belong to the Nineteenth Legion. Corax stands alone with the ruined weapons of his gene-sons scattered about him. His hearts going cold he casts his gaze across the ocean once more. The sun hangs just above the horizon, but it is frozen, staring at the Ravenlord like a baleful crimson-blighted eye. All-seeing and ever-vigilant it mocks him. It is the Eye of Horus - it is the sigil of the archtraitor himself.

The rich heady scent of genhanced blood fills Corax’s nostrils, overwhelming in its absolute completeness. The sea is dyed red and it is not because of the tainted light. The befouled waters churn as wounded Space Marines armored in the charcoal-black of the Nineteenth thrash and flail among the waves, all struggling to reach their gene-father. Thousands upon thousands of marble-white faces, each one a similar yet unique reflection of his own, stare back at Corax. The ebony eyes of the Raven Guard legionaries are filled with despair, rage and accusation. A bird alights on Corax's left shoulder. It is not one of the sea-gulls. A large void-black raven gouges open the primarch's cheek with its long beak as great flocks of its kin gather and wheel en-mass above the trapped dying Space Marines, their raucous croaking filling the air and driving out all other sounds.

A second raven lands on Corax’s right shoulder. “Let us feed,” the bird hisses eagerly into the primarch’s ear. The carrion birds thronging about the exposed heads of his sons immediately take up the cry: _“Let us feed! – let us feed! – let us feed!”_ The crimson Eye regards the scene with indolent contempt. The Raven Guard legionaries fight to gain the shore, their massed armored bodies surging forwards like a wave of black borne upon a tide of red. They strive in vain; both the firm ground and their primarch alike remain just beyond the reach of even the closest Astartes. The ravens circle and scream as the helpless warriors flounder and sink below them. _“Let us feed – let us feed – let us feed!”_

“They are useless to you now, Corvus,” the second raven says as its companion tears a strip of skin from Corax’s cheek and gulps it down. “Let us take care of them for you. Their worthless flesh will provide a feast like no other. You have failed them and they know it. They have failed you and you know it. Death is all that remains to them. Let us feed. Let us gorge ourselves on the carcass of this your greatest failure. You cannot save them – they are not even worth saving. Not now.”

“No!” snarls Corax, making an attempt to cast himself into the surf and seize as many of his drowning legionaries as possible. “They are my sons. I will not forsake them.” His feet do not obey him. The primarch remains stationary, motionless, helpless in the face of his warriors’ doomed endeavors to break free of the choking water. The racket of the waiting ravens smothers their pleas for aid and rescue. The waves washing Corax’s feet are now utterly suffused with his Legions' collective blood. “Put them out of their misery,” the raven beats it wings impatiently, its sharp talons digging into the meat of his shoulder. “If you truly care for them then let them go – let them die. Let us feed.”

 _“My sons!”_ Corax screams aloud, sweat breaking out all along his body as he strains against the paralysis keeping him fixed in place. Other ravens begin to mob him, flapping and whirling like ragged shadows as they claw and jab at his face and arms and back. _“Let us feed! – let us feed! – let us feed!”_ He cannot seem to fight them off. He cannot move at all. The bloodied tide rises to his knees but brings his legionaries no closer. The murderous birds fall as one upon the struggling Space Marines, tearing at their faces and pecking at their eyes. “Behold the price of your leadership!” the perched raven cries, “Behold the consequences of your failure!”

Corax’s vision blurs into a hazed maelstrom of midnight and crimson as the dream fragments and fades around him. He sinks into the waves, the ravens still attacking him in a flurry of jabs and cuts. He can feel the malignant Eye following him down into the dark; then it, too, finally vanishes from sight as a familiar, hated voice pierces through his unconscious mind and he feels the Night Haunter’s claws –

**X.**

“Come brother, you do not require this much sleep. Awake. What are nightmares compared to the unforgiving truths of reality? Unless your dreams are tainted by hope? Is that why you seek to hide behind a curtain of delusional falsities? Come, we are still in the warp – I cannot imagine you have escaped to anywhere genuinely pleasant. Awake, Corax. It is time we continued with your illumination.”

The Ravenlord came to full awareness instantly. Konrad Curze stood before him, fully armored as he always was, the tips of his deactivated lighting claws wet once more with the primarch’s blood. Unlike the previous assaults the new wounds were shallow and would likely heal within the hour. Not that Corax knew for certain. Having lost track of himself in between engaging Angron in battle and being taken captive aboard the _Nightfall_ , and with the cell’s sole lumen constantly emitting its dim light regardless of the vessel's day/night cycle, Corax was adrift as far as the passage of time was concerned. Only the knowledge that the deeper internal injuries and broken bones he’d sustained while fighting the World Eaters on Isstvan V were almost fully mended gave him some loose idea of how long he had been a prisoner. The _Nightfall_ was still traversing the immaterium, its destination unknown to the Ravenlord. Despite his madness the Night Haunter had not let slip anything of tactical importance during his rant, leaving Corax in the dark as to his brother’s plans and goals. As far as Curze seemed concerned, Corax existed solely to be an unwilling disciple of his twisted world-views, with his flesh serving as a canvas upon which the Night Haunter worked to further impress upon the loyalist primarch just how helpless and hopeless his predicament was.

“What were you dreaming about, Corax?” Curze asked suddenly, peering intently into the Ravenlord’s eyes. He seemed excited about something. He moved more fluidly and appeared to be more grounded in reality then he had been on his previous visit.

“Death,” rasped Corax, and a small part of him wondered at how hard and hollow his voice had become. "I dreamed about Death, and blood.”

Curze grinned his hideous dead-head’s grin, looking thoroughly pleased. “Then it was a good dream, quite so. Dreams of endless slaughter and the ruin of worlds, ah! I myself dream of – and foresee – nothing else. Was it about _me_ , Corax? Did you dream about tearing your traitorous misguided brother limb from limb with your bare hands and teeth? Did my lifeblood fountain and flood your mouth as you ripped my throat out? Did my body shudder in ecstasy beneath yours as you liberated me from this accursed existence?” Curze pressed in close and wrapped his arms about Corax’s waist, the icy lengths of his talons resting like softly-whispered threats across the primarch’s lower back. “Tell me about it – it will not anger me. Since you are not destined to kill me I am curious as to what it felt like for you. Did I fight back or did I submit to your judgment? Did I beg or did I mock? Did my death bring you any solace, any vindication?”

Corax turned his face away from the Night Haunter’s rancid breath. “I did not dream about you at all, Curze,” he said coldly, determined not to loose his control again. “I dreamed of my legionaries. I dreamed of their deaths. That is all.”

“Oh.” Curze’s face came close to exhibiting something near to comical puzzlement. Then he laughed sickeningly and shook his head at his own presumptuousness. “Forgive me, Corax – I often forget that many of my brothers have strong emotional attachments to their gene-sons that I simply do not possess. There is not one Night Lord legionary in all the glorious Eighth that I do not hold in contempt, and there is only one – just one – that I do not hate. My sons are but the poisoned dregs of dead Nostramo – the tainted detritus of a sinful sunless world that I condemned to the fires of annihilation. But they still have their uses. With them I will tear down vast swaths of our Father’s hypocritical Imperium. I will begin a reign of terror the likes of which have not been imagined in the minds of men since the horrors of Old Night. I will fall upon loyal world after loyal world and bring to the False Emperor’s faithful chattle a new truth, which is, in reality, the oldest truth, the one He tried to blind us all to. With the claws and knives of my depraved sons I shall declare unto Mankind that hope is dead and that the Darkness has come for them all. Father cannot prevent their torments and thus humanity will soon be enlightened anew by my gospel, the gospel of the Night Haunter.”

“A gospel of terror and madness,” Corax snarled. “A gospel that proclaims only hopelessness and moral depravity to unenhanced men and women who are substantially weaker and more vulnerable then us. Do not the masses of humanity struggle enough? Are not their lives brief and fraught with sorrows uncountable? We were created to aid them, to bring about the age of Unity and Enlightenment for our species. You would only multiply their sufferings, and to no good end. Your betrayal and the betrayals of the others are a denial of what we are and our greater purpose. Father made us –”

 _“Our Father made us to refashion the galaxy in His own image!”_ Curze’s claws dug bloody furrows in Corax’s back as his anger arose to choke him. “Do you like being a mere tool, brother? All the Emperor truly did for you was to transfer you from one small cramped prison to a much larger, more opulent one. Why should His vision be any more valid or superior then mine or the Warmaster’s? The galaxy will burn because He overreached Himself – Horus will make sure of that. Humanity has always been doomed. Why can you not understand, Corax? Nothing can be done to alter Mankind’s ultimate fate. Father was a fool for trying to deny the Dark, for thinking His Light could drive back the doom decreed for us from the beginning. It cannot be helped. I am what the Emperor made me, and He made me a monster, a weapon of terror. I am doing exactly what He fashioned me to do, Corax. Only now I inflict pain and bring terror because I will it, not because He wills it. He cannot command me any more. My gospel will be preached and worlds will scream as the lesson is taught over and over until all shall know the truth, however unpleasant it may be.”

Corax closed his eyes, micro-shudders lancing through his body as Curze’s claws continued in their violative caresses. Trying to see past the madness festering in his brother’s mind wearied him beyond all measure. Anger awoke again in his hearts, but it was a colder, less explosive anger then the kind he had given into during their last debate. “You truly have no hope, Curze?” he hissed between clenched teeth, arcing his back in defiance against the fresh pain. “You will command your Legion to murder billions of innocents and destroy entire worlds just to spite our Father, all because He dared to place His hope in Mankind and alter the course of human history to save His species? Because He brought us into being to help Him build an empire together, a civilization greater and more beautiful then anything humanity had ever created before? How utterly petty of you, Konrad; how pointlessly selfish, how banally _pathetic.”_

Curze stiffened, his blades pausing as the Ravenlord's blood stained his gauntlets afresh. Corax laughed. The noise sounded foreign in his ears. “Heed me well, _brother_ – I will not join you in your cesspit of despair. I will not surrender my hope, however hopeless it may be. You traitors may have taken everything from me, but this one thing you will never take. I will remain a son of the Light; I do not fear it, not as you do. I am Father’s knife in the dark. A mere tool? Perhaps. But all warriors who battle the Dark need weapons, and the greater the threat the greater those weapons must be – and Curze, I am very well-designed weapon. I am a knife like no other. Like Father I defy the Dark even as I become one with it without being consumed by it. You do not truly comprehend me. I am a stranger to you. You mock me and bleed me and use your psykers to force demoralizing visions into my mind and assume that gives you power to overrule my will. No, Curze. I will keep my oaths until the last star burns out. Now depart from me, or kill me, but do not preach your gospel of hopelessness to one who was created to bring hope. I am the Deliverer. The Emperor I know, in as much as He has permitted me to know Him. But you? I do not know you. I never have. And now that I have listened to your words I only feel one thing – complete and utter _contempt_.”

The Night Haunter pushed Corax from him as if the captive primarch had stabbed him in the gut with a hidden knife. “You do not know me either, brother,” he spat at the Ravenlord venomously, his thin lips peeling back to expose his blackened fangs. “And you are wrong in thinking I have taken everything from you. If I had truly taken everything you would not be so defiant, so steadfast in your hope and your clarity of purpose. I warned you that you have no idea what I am capable of – I told you to forsake hope, and that you would know such pain, such grief, that you will renounce being Father’s loyal son. Do you think I make empty threats? I do not, Corax. Perhaps you truly believe you can endure whatever torments I may choose to subject you to. Perhaps you can. But all your resistance has been built upon a false foundation: you believe you are bereft of your gene-sons, and therefore you have nothing left to loose except your life. But it is not so...”

Something unfathomly cold and abysmally black tightened around Corax’s hearts and squeezed. Seeing the stunned realization dawning on his brother’s face the Night Haunter nodded affirmatively. Stepping back he spread his arms dramatically, the bloodstained lightning claws glistening in the lumen's sickly illumination. “You do not suffer alone, o Lord of Ravens. You were not the sole prisoner the Eighth took from the Isstvan system. True, the World Eaters were quite thorough in the slaughter of the Raven Guard but even they did not manage to slay each and every legionary who stood by your side at the final battle. My men managed to retrieve twenty-three survivors, twenty-three still-living raven chicks not wounded grievously enough to warrant the Emperor’s peace. How desperate you must have been to stand against the might of Angron's entire Legion with only three thousand warriors! The World Eaters took great delight in the decimation, but the Night Lords now take pleasure of a different kind from your captured legionaries...”

At a privately-given signal the bulkhead opened fully and two Night Lord legionaries entered the cell, roughly pushing a naked Space Marine before them. The armorless pale-skinned Astartes was visibly staggering as if he were intoxicated, his head bowed with weariness, his black hair matted with dried blood, his powerful body marred by a plethora of diverse mutilations that bespoke of cruel torments and merciless degradations. His hands were securely shacked behind him and he offered no resistance as the Night Lords forced him to his knees before Curze. Corax recognized the warrior immediately – it was battle-brother Stradon Binalt, one of the Raven Guard’s most skilled Techmarines. Without a word the Night Lords saluted and exited, leaving their prisoner alone with the two primarchs. Stradon did not speak or even look up. Out of his battleplate his overly-muscled body seemed like a grotesque parody of the human form. Having inherited many of Corax’s physical characteristics upon his ascension he likewise mirrored the likeness of his captors to an uncanny degree, easily passing visually as a scion of sunless Nostramo despite being a son of liberated Deliverance – not that the familiarity had earned him any mercy from his traitor-cousins. Retracting his claws Curze leaned down and gripped the Raven Guard's skull between his fingers, forcing Stradon to look around at his primarch.

“Let your despair be complete, little carrion-feeder,” the Night Haunter hissed vindictively as the legionary's ebony eyes widened in shock and horror at the sight of his chained and bloodied gene-father. “Now is the death of hope, now is the foreseen hour of Darkness, now will my gospel find fulfillment.” Curze straightened, wrenching the bound Stradon upright before flinging him onto his face at the Ravenlord's feet. “Show some respect for your primarch, nephew – not that he deserves it. Not that he _ever_ deserved it, being the skulking cowardly failure that he is.”

“Curze…you…you…” Grief twisted Corax’s hearts and rage seared his mind as his enhanced vision took in every minute detail of the physical outrages the Night Lords had inflicted upon his surviving son. Only a Space Marine could withstand that level of torture without succumbing to shock or blood loss. But the loyal legionary was not yet broken. Refusing to show further weakness now that he was in the presence of his lord, Stradon raised himself painfully back onto his knees and inclined his head respectfully towards his gene-sire. “My lord primarch,” he whispered raggedly through cut lips, the words garbled slightly owing to his pierced and branded tongue. “What are your orders?”

"Ah, isn't that touching?" Curze sneered, ruffling the Techmarine's hair with a false exaggerated gentleness. “You should be so proud, Corax. Sevatar himself put this little bird under his knives and despite his ministrations he still refused to renounce the False Emperor, even when offered a place of merit within the brotherhood of our Legion were his skills would be greatly valued.” The Night Haunter fixed the kneeling legionary with a stern glare. “I will make the offer one last time, Stradon of the now-extinct Raven Guard: your Legion has failed to bring the Warmaster to heel and your defeated primarch’s life continues only because I desire it. He is a failed leader unworthy of your fealty. The Imperium will burn in the fires of Horus’ rebellion and the Emperor’s deluded dream will perish in ash and blood. Loyalty to a dead ideal will avail you nothing. Pledge yourself to me and join my warriors in shaping a new future devoid of hypocrisy and lies; be reborn in the ascendant Night that shall engulf the galaxy. The Deliverer cannot save you. I can. Choose wisely, little raven.”

In that moment, Corax knew what Curze was going to do. The Night Haunter did not care about securing Stradon’s allegiance; his only desire was to see his brother humiliated and driven to despair. If the Raven Guard had not turned his back on the Emperor after being tortured by the Night Lords’ infamous First Captain then there was no chance he ever would. Curze knew this – it was the sole reason the legionary had been brought to the cell in the first place. The Night Haunter had made the offer knowing Stradon would reject it. He anticipated the rejection, had likely even foreseen it; his plan relied on the Space Marine remaining loyal to Corax, even when faced with his gene-father’s apparent powerlessness. Corax could not save his son. That was the point Curze was trying to make to both the legionary and the primarch. They were as helpless as children and failures as loyalists; they could not prevent the Night Haunter from ordering the slaughter of entire Imperial planetary populations any more then could stop him from ending their lives right here at this moment. There was only one thing Corax could do for his faithful warrior, only one action he could take that would give Stradon's death a measure of meaning if he chose to keep his oaths. Victory or Death. The sons of Deliverance accepted nothing else.

Stradon did not even deign to respond to Curze’s offer of betrayal-tainted salvation. His eyes never left his primarch. Despite the pain and deprivation he’d endured the legionary remained steadfast despite the absence of hope or the impossibility of deliverance. Only his father could give purpose to his death, however pointless it was. “What are your orders, sire?” 

“My son, my son,” Corax’s deep voice filled the cell as he reassumed his inborn primarch’s majesty; he did not need his master-crafted power armor or his Martain-foraged artificer weapons to invoke awe and inspire devotion. Curze narrowed his eyes with a soft hiss as the Light that had always existed within Corax shone through his skin and face, cloaking him in a golden radiance, ennobling and transforming the Ravenlord into that which he was forever sworn to remain: a loyal gene-son of the Emperor of Mankind.

 _“Kill the Night Haunter,”_ Corax commanded, the four words laden with all the inherent power and exalted authority of an implacable god of war in whom his warriors trusted implicitly.

“By your will, my primarch,” Stradon answered without hesitation as a look of astonishment and rage twisted across Konrad Curze’s cadaverous face. “I live but to serve.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stradon Binalt is a named canonical Raven Guard Techmarine from the Corvus Corax stories by Gav Thorpe.
> 
> Okay, I thought this would be the chapter in which Curze does some truly terrible things but it looks like Chapter 7 will getting that multiple-warning designation. Thanks for following the story so far. Knowing people are invested help keeps me writing.


	7. VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for battle violence, blood, torture, humiliation and mutilation

**Three Minutes / Curse or Beg / Victory or Death**

**XI.**

_“Kill the Night Haunter.”_ At Corax’s command Stradon made an attempt to rise even though Curze was still standing by him, one gauntlet firmly resting on the Raven Guard’s head. The surprised look on the traitor primarch’s face swiftly shifted to one of unbridled delight. Keeping the legionary pinned in place, Curze reached down with his free hand and broke the shackles securing Stradon’s wrists before stepping swiftly back towards the sealed bulkhead. The Techmarine surged to his feet, his mutilated face contorted with fury and determination, his hands curling into claws as he spun about to face the Night Haunter. Curze howled in glee at the sight and brandished an unassuming black-bladed combat knife that had been maglocked to his hip. As Stradon made to charge Curze help up a forestalling hand, a wicked smile playing across normally haggard features now animated by the anticipation of bloodshed.

“I will indulge your gene-father’s pathetic attempt to secure you a worthy death, little raven. If you manage to spill a drop of my blood within the next three minutes I will end your life quickly and cleanly. If you fail you will die slowly and agonizingly before the eyes of your primarch and I will see to it that you curse him before you drew your final breath.” The Night Haunter tossed the combat knife and the Raven Guard deftly caught it by the hilt. It was sized to fit comfortably in a primarch’s hand; in the grip of the legionary it was as big as a short sword. “Watch, brother!” Curze snarled as he dropped catlike into a crouch and flung his arms out wide. “Watch your son fail and damn himself by following your final command. Watch as I teach him the death of hope; bare witness to the ultimate lesson of futility.”

 _“Victorus aut Mortis!”_ Stradon roared as he sprang at the enemy primarch, the knife almost blurring as the Astartes’ enhanced reflexes propelled it in a swift jab at Curze’s unprotected throat. Faster then the mortal eye could follow the Night Haunter grabbed the Raven Guard’s knife-wrist and twisted it even as he slammed a fist into Stradon’s left side. Fused ribs cracked like kindling under the demigod’s blow; thick bones splintered unresistingly in the traitor’s viselike grip. The knife clattered to the deck. Rising and spinning about Curze ripped the Space Marine off his feet and smashed him bodily against the wall on Corax’s right. More bones broke. Stradon uttered a grunt of pain and coughed up blood. The Night Haunter released his foe and let him fall heavily to the floor. Refraining from making a follow-up attack Curze stepped back, allowing the Raven Guard to stand again. Stradon’s right wrist was a twisted ruin, the bones and tendons so mangled and torn the hand was rendered useless. Curze snatched up the fallen knife and again tossed it to the crippled Astartes, still grinning like a famished wolf.

“Try again, little raven,” the Night Haunter laughed as the Raven Guard took up the blade in his left hand. Now he charged the Space Marine himself; Stradon met his assault head-on knowing it was futile but determined to obey his primarch's last order. Curze smashed his knee into the Astartes' chest, cracking the posthuman's carapace and sending him hurtling backwards, still gripping the knife. This time the Night Haunter did not wait for the Raven Guard to recover; with a snarl he pounced on his downed prey, his fangs bared as if to tear into the flesh of his victim. Stradon swung the blade towards Curze's leering face; the Night Haunter caught his good wrist just before the weapon pierced his cheek, the arrested knife tip coming to a stop a hairsbreadth from his skin. "So close!" Curze cackled, saliva scattering from his teeth. "Come on, bleed me, you pathetic excuse of an Astartes!"

The traitor primarch allowed the Techmarine to struggle a few seconds as Stradon fought against Curze's superior strength to land a blow. Corax watched helplessly, his own teeth grinding together as he forced himself not to cry out for Curze to show the legionary mercy. The Night Haunter glanced expectantly at his brother, as if waiting for Corax to beg for his son's quick death. From the moment Stradon's loyalty had proven to be unwavering he had been delegated to a tool to be utilized by Curze to break the Ravenlord, to humiliate and disgrace Corax, to force him to forsake hope and join Curze in the Darkness. He would not stain himself with pleading and begging. He would not disgrace himself in the presence of his faithful legionary. It was the duty of fathers to be strong for their sons, to set an example regardless of the tribulations that arose. Stradon had not yet asked for mercy. Corax would not shame him by begging for it on his behalf. The Night Haunter cocked his head, feigning confusion. “Do you not care for him, brother? Does he mean nothing to you?”

“He alone is worth more than an entire company of your murdering whelps,” the Ravenlord snarled defiantly, his voice still reverberating with power. The lofty words were strictly for Stradon's benefit. To be praised by one's primarch was one of the greatest things a Space Marine could experience and the legionary would need strength for what was coming. “Is he truly?” Curze licked his lips in anticipation. “Let us see!” He turned back to the still-straining legionary. “Time’s up, nephew,” Curze sneered as he crushed the Raven Guard's wrist in his gauntlet, causing the knife to slip from the Astartes' fingers for the last time; again the crack of breaking bones resounded across the cell. “Even one minute is too long an opportunity to waste on you. I offered you a place in my Legion and you rejected my generosity to uphold a few pointless vows. So be it. I didn't expect you to be as sensible as Alastor Rushal - neither did Sevatar. You would rather be degraded in front of your primarch then humble yourself before the Lord of the Night. You would rather suffer – ”

Stradon spat in the Night Haunter's face. The acidic spittle splashed against the cheek the knife had failed to pierce and sizzled as it burned the primarch's skin. Curze did not even flinch. “We will begin, then. Do you still desire mercy, little raven? Curse my brother and my Father to my face and I will grant it without hesitation. Continue in this obtuse resistance and the path of pain will have no end. The Deliverer cannot save you.” He straddled the smaller transhuman, looming over the wounded Raven Guard like a manifest nightmare given flesh and function by a sadistic artisan. “I am the implacable King of Terror and the sovereign Lord of Despair.” The lighting claws sprang into being once more, now stained a dirty red by Corax’s dried blood. “I am the most cursed of all the False Emperor’s cursed sons, the primarch who is feared above all others...” The wan light of the lone lumen seemed to dim further and shadows filled the cell, pooling like spilled ink across the floor and caressing the Night Haunter’s angular body as he bent down, his breathing quickening as the razor-edged talons sank into unarmored alabaster flesh. “...and you will heed my gospel, little raven.”

The heavy adamantium chains shook as Corax heaved against them, his mind roaring in maddened silence against the invading despair and the thwarted wrath that threatened to consume him in his grief and helplessness. The desire to destroy the creature before him, the urge to grind its bones to dust and rip away the flesh that covered them, the need to crush its skull to paste and tear out its hearts as they still beat engulfed the Ravenlord with such intensity it obliterated the lingering pain and boiled away his rational thoughts until only the desire to kill his brother remained. He snarled, he strained; crimson-tainted spittle sprayed from his jaws as he spat indecipherable threats and curses, his muscles bulging with effort as he fought to launch himself at the fallen primarch. The chains held, the spiked manacles hooking deeper into his flesh. The pain meant nothing to Corax. His past and his future meant nothing. There was only the Night Haunter, exultant, triumphant; there was only his son, incapacitated, helpless. There was only the pitiless Dark, eternal and everlasting...Only death, only darkness, only despair...

Curze appeared to pay Corax no heed. Stradon began to thrash and shudder as the claws worked him over, carefully shredding already-mutilated skin and digging into raw muscle previously ravaged by the attentions of Jago Sevatar. Unlike the thousands upon thousands of mortal humans Curze had tortured since first landing on sunless Nostramo the physiology of the genhanced warriors of the Legiones Astartes allowed them to suffer a far wider range of physical damage and degradation without succumbing to death, giving the Night Lords ample opportunity since the Dropsite Massacre to experiment and push the boundaries of what manner of pain could be inflicted on a Space Marine before their superior bodies failed them. The captive Raven Guard, Salamander and Iron Hands legionaries had provided the Eighth Legion with a wealth of knowledge and entertainment alike, and the Night Haunter gave himself fully over to artfully extracting as much pain from the Ravenlord's gene-son as possible.

“Your father’s choices and actions are what delivered you to me, little raven,” Curze hissed as Stradon struggled uselessly beneath him. “I am merely doing what the Emperor designed me to do. We are all prisoners of uncaring fate, hostages to a cold and merciless universe. You lost the battle. You were taken prisoner. You were given a choice. Accept the consequences of your decision; acknowledge your primarch’s failure. Soon he will be nothing more then a senseless ignoble beast - which as all we truly are, under the mask of our morality and refinement. He will break soon, but not before everything he honored and fought for has been taken from him. You and Rushal are merely the first.”

“Bastard! Traitor! I defy you!” Stradon had already suffered immensely under Sevatar and even his godlike tolerance and perseverance had been reduced to their lowest ebb, compounded further by the trails he had already endured over a nightmare period of months spent on Isstvan V as the remnants of the Nineteenth Legion were hunted and harried by various traitor forces without any hope or expectation of rescue. But now he knew Corax still lived and watched him, waiting to see if Stradon would be found wanting. His gene-sire's mere presence lit a fire within the very fibers of the legionary’s being, causing his defiance and resolve to flame anew within his mind and hearts. He would not break in the presence of his primarch. He would not violate his oaths to appease this monster who had betrayed the Emperor and killed so many of his battle-brothers. Even as the Night Haunter’s talons inflicted fresh unavoidable agony Stradon fought back, striking and clawing hopelessly at Curze’s armored chest and shoulders despite his shattered wrists.

“My father is twice the primarch you'll ever be!” the loyal Space Marine roared defiantly, blood spilling from the corners of his mouth as his splintered ribs dug into his laboring lungs. “I am his loyal son! I am a servant of the Emperor! Go screw yourself!”

Curze threw back his head and laughed, a sound similar to that of felines being skinned alive. He withdrew his bloodied claws from the Raven Guard's ravaged chest and impaled Stradon's flailing right hand, tearing the palm partially in half and severing two fingers. Blood spurted from the wound, spattering across the Night Haunter's crazed face. “That's it - keep fighting, keep resisting. I'm just getting started. Are you still watching, brother? Hah! Look at him, little raven - see his worthless hatred? See his futile struggles? He wants so badly to stop me he is almost senseless with rage. Let's see what we can do to further his pain. Together you and I will ruin him.”

Galvanized, Stradon fought with renewed desperation, furious at the thought of being complicit in Corax's fall. With a savage swipe the Night Haunter deprived the Raven Guard of his left hand. The cell was now awash with the rich scent of spilled Astartes vitae. The shock of the sudden amputation caused Stradon to go limp under his captor, fresh blood and sweat coating his mutilated muscles. He glared up at his distant uncle, his ebony eyes still burning with hatred, crimson-slicked teeth bared in a grimace of agony and defiance. “That's better,” Curze said as he raised himself slightly and roughly flipped Stradon onto his stomach. The legionary's powerful back was already a ragged mess of half-healed wounds torn open anew by his frenzied thrashing. The primarch paused a moment to consider Sevatar's handiwork and curled his lip contemptuously. “I can do better. Watch, Corax. Watch well and learn a few things.”

* * *

Corax watched. He could have spared himself the sight – there was no one else present to ensure his kept his eyes fixed on the spectacle of torment taking place a few feet away from him. He watched not because Curze wanted him to, but because someone had to bear witness to Stradon’s strength and courage as the Raven Guard strove to endure pain that would have killed all but a Space Marine. The Ravenlord had ceased his struggling - the chains would not break; a dislocated shoulder had finally cut through the madness, forcing him to face the fact he could not save his gene-son by futile pulling and tugging. Stradon was now far beyond deliverance. He lay pinned on the deck with the Night Haunter bestride him, his body writhing and spasming uncontrollably as Curze's talons and teeth methodically violated every exposed inch of flesh, building on Sevatar's previous work and adding new designs of his own devising. Unable to keep track of time it felt to Corax as if the torture had been going on for days. Perhaps it had. Only the Night Haunter knew how long the legionary had suffered.

“I can make it last for an eternity, little raven,” Curze had boasted as he carefully peeled Stradon's scalp back from his skull. He had been looking into Corax's eyes as he said it, directing the words at his brother rather then his victim. “Beg for my mercy. Plead for his death, brother. If you ask nicely enough I will end him. Or do you want it to end? Are you enjoying this? Are you glad he suffers rather than you? Do you not care for his plight at all? Do you Corax? Do you?”

Corax gave no answer, nor did he break down and beg for the Techmarine's death. Curze continued with his ministrations at a leisurely pace as if he had all the time in the galaxy at his disposal. Each suppressed cry he wrung from Stradon, each faint gasp and moan that escaped the Raven Guard's clenched teeth was like the Night Haunter's talons ripping into the very essence of what the nineteenth primarch was, ravaging the immaterial part of the Ravenlord Curze could not otherwise reach. Stradon spoke no more, refusing to curse his father or the Emperor. The shadows writhed about them like impatient spectators anticipating the eventual capitulation of one or the other. Corax watched, determined to stay strong for his son. Curze waited, knowing it was only a manner of time. Stradon endured, vowing he would not be like Rushal the oathbreaker.

“Do you care, Corax? Do you care at all?”

The repeated questions became a mantra, a litany accompanying each twist of the claws. Involuntary tears left tracks of white down Stradon's blood-grimed face and it shamed the legionary that he could not hide them from his primarch (Curze made sure the Astartes faced Corax at all times so each micro-expression that betrayed his inner agony could be clearly seen and remembered). The Ravenlord saw the look shame and it seemed so wrong that it was there at all he almost looked away. Instead he forced himself to smile gently at his loyal son. Corax rarely smiled. It was strangely beautiful. Stradon grinned back and a look of relief came into his eyes. Fluid had been slowly filling his pierced primary lungs and each breath was more labored than the last; only his additional third lung was keeping him supplied with oxygen. Sensing something amiss the Night Haunter abruptly stood up, liberating the Space Marine of his oppressive weight. Quickly the primarch rolled him onto his back with the toe of one boot and peered closely at Stradon's face, noting the bubbling lungblood leaking from the legionary's mouth and nose. Stradon grinned again and then went into convulsions as vital organs damaged and punctured during the initial fight began to fail all at once, his Astartes physiology finally overwhelmed by the aggravated untreated internal injuries.

“Victory...or _Death!_ ” Blood burst like a fountain from the Raven Guard's jaws following his triumphant declaration. Curze snarled like wolf being deprived of its prey and drove both sets of claws deep into the legionary's guts. Stradon didn't even feel the blades enter him. Death claimed loyalist for its own and the Night Haunter found himself tearing into a mutilated corpse that was already beginning to cool. Corax laughed bitterly and Curze shot him a look of pure hatred.

“I warned you, Curze; I told you he was worth a company of yours.” Corax's voice was laden with scorn and another rare smile graced his lips. “You can imprison our bodies but you cannot chain our spirits. No warrior of Deliverance will ever yield to a tyrant like you. Don't you see it? That's what true loyalty looks like when it is born of devotion and not fear; you will never know -"

 _“Shut up!”_ Curze snarled savagely, rising from blood-drenched body of the dead Astartes. He brandished a pair of dripping talons at his chained brother. “They are not all loyal, not all faithful! Alastor Rushal broke his oaths to you - he'd rather be Sevatar's pet then suffer for the sake of a dead Legion. This one got lucky; the rest of your chicks will be kept alive for as long as they keep the Night Lords entertained. When I inform them of your capture their despair will be magnified a hundred-fold. How long can they remain stalwart in the face of so much pain and deprivation when they learn their primarch is at my mercy? Twenty-one loyal legionaries, Corax - all that's left of the Raven Guard retribution force you brought to the Isstvan system. I will break them all...unless you renounce our Father and His fraudulent empire.”

Pain of a different sort flared in the Ravenlord's eyes at the news of Rushal's betrayal but Stradon's steadfastness had cemented the primarch's faith in his surviving sons. “I will not. Neither will my sons. We will prove you wrong, Curze. We will prove your gospel false.” 

Curze shook his head in frustration. Bending over Stadon's corpse he retracted his claws and punched his hand into the legionary's chest cavity. With a feral expression he withdrew the Raven Guard's primary heart in his gore-coated fist. Holding it aloft before Corax he crushed the organ, showering the deckplate further with loyal Astartes blood.

“We shall see, brother.” Lowering his head the Night Haunter began to feed greedily on the pulped remains he still clutched in his palm. “We shall see.”


	8. VIII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for trippy warp-dreams, gore and mild(?) body horror

**XII.**

**Warp Whispers / Would You Rather Die? / Oath of Moment**

Seventeen day-cycles had passed; Corax now had a means by which he could measure time once more. Stradon's severed head lay slowly decomposing on the decking before him, just out of kicking range. The rest of his body lay scattered haphazardly across the cell in gory pieces, the stench of his rotting flesh thick and cloying despite the recycled air. After dismembering the loyal Raven Guard’s corpse and placing the head directly within the primarch’s line of sight Curze had left the Ravenlord alone with the desecrated body of his faithful son to attend to Legion matters. With nothing to do but mark the days using the various stages of the decaying remains as a crude point of reference Corax could only hang and await his mad brother’s return. Incessant hunger gnawed at him and he took to drinking blood by biting his own tongue and lips to slake his terrible thirst. Precious pounds continued to fall away, leaving him gaunt and pallid, his face taking on a haggard cadaverous aspect redolent of the Night Haunter’s own famished features.

He slipped into sleep-trances regularly while his body slowly healed, and as the _Nightfall_ continued to traverse the warp the hallucinatory dreams ebbed and flowed in nightmarish succession as his mind struggled against the temptations of insanity and his spirit warred against the ever-encroaching despair. Echoing cries of pain and rage ghosted about the cell: the voices of his surviving sons cursing his name as they slowly perished one-by-one under the attentive cruelty of Curze's sadistic legionaries. Memories of the horrors witnessed on Isstavn V replayed behind the primarch's eyes, every atrocity committed against the Raven Guard Legion relived again and again in glaring clarity. Once when he glanced down at Stradon's head he saw instead the face of Ferrus Manus glaring back at him, accusation and condemnation glittering in his betrayed brother's dead eyes. 

The whispers were the worst. The subtle sibilant voices wove themselves around him like invisible razorwires cutting into the meat of his mind, ever-present in the background of the tortured dreamscapes of memory and hallucination. They were insistent, eager to be heard. Corax could never make out the exact words but it was nonetheless impressed upon him that a great revelation lay within his grasp if he would only attend closely and heed their wisdom. But Corax was certain on an instinctual level that he must not do so, for down that path lay the ruin of all he loved and honored; his traitor brothers waited at the end, and Corax knew he would rather die a thousand deaths then willingly take a place in their company.

 ** _“Would you truly rather die, Corvus Corax?”_** This whisper, soft and mocking, finally hissed words he could understand with surprising clarity. **_“A thousand deaths? One for each Raven Guard legionary, perhaps? What arrogance. Ruin has already befallen all you've ever believed in and fought for. Your resistance is as futile as it is pointless. You have always been a prisoner, Anathema's son. I would offer you freedom: true freedom – a freedom your wisest brothers have embraced. Heed my words and the truth will set you free.”_**

“No...” Corax growled, teeth clenched. He opened his eyes. The cell had vanished. The Ravenlord was on his knees in the middle of an elevated plateau that seemed to stretch into infinity on all sides. The turbulent sky above was a sullen meat-raw red. Mounds of bleached human skulls were piled all about him as far as the eye could see. Each one had an 'XIX' branded onto their foreheads and Corax knew that they represented each and every Raven Guard Astartes that had perished along the path of conquest from the birth of the Great Crusade to Stradon's defiant end at the claws of Curze. With a grimace the primarch rose to his feet, naked except for a linen loincloth and a tattered cloak of black feathers that flapped out behind him in a dry breeze that stank of ash and bone-dust. Before him stood the primary whisperer, the being who claimed to offer him true liberty. Bile rose in Corax's throat and horror gripped at his hearts. “No...” he breathed again, wanting but unable to turn away.

The giver of freedom stood atop the nearest hill of skulls, staring loftily down at the lone primarch. The abomination was humanoid, and roughly the same height and build as the Ravenlord; its skin had been flayed from its musculature, the exposed flesh and sinews peeled back from the thing's skeletal system with countless hooks and clamps. A pair of spiked manacles encircled its bony wrists, the broken ends of the chains swaying in the wind; long curving claws sprouted like mutated growths from its bare knuckles. Lank ebony hair blew about its flaking scalp but its facial features were obscured by a black iron mask fashioned in the form of a raven's skull. An identical cloak of ragged feathers hung from its own hunched shoulders and it carried a split-ended whip in one hand. Somehow, impossibly, it was smiling.

 ** _“Come, Corax; be free at last. Your Legion is dead - there is no more need for you to suffer on your sons' behalf; your Father cannot save you and cares nothing for your plight. You know this. Come, be a prisoner no longer; change your fate – take the path of freedom or else choose to die a miserable death under the knives of the Night Haunter.”_** It extended its empty skeletal hand towards the Ravenlord in a gesture of camaraderie. Blood oozed from the porous talons of bone. **_“Deliver yourself from blinding lies and willful self-delusion; free yourself from unnecessary pain and needless torment.”_** A silver chalice manifested in the air before the creature's skinned chest. Liquid like unto dark wine sloshed and spilled down its polished sides. **_“Come to me and drink, Corax; slake your thirst and be illumined. It is not terrible; it is liberating. The wretched so-called Night Haunter will fall at your feet like the inferior sibling he secretly knows himself to be. And then you shall be free, completely and utterly – forever.”_ **

“I am…so thirsty…” The words escaped Corax’s shredded lips before he became aware he was speaking them. The fatigued primarch took a step towards the hill, feeling skulls crack and crumble beneath his feet. The words came easier now; confessing aloud felt like an oppressive weight was being lifted from his hearts. “I failed to stop Horus…failed to save my Legion…”

 ** _“Yes, yes you did,”_** the maimed creature that was somehow also himself nodded in casual agreement. **_“But once you are illuminated that will no longer matter. So many things will cease to matter in the light of truth. It will be beautiful, Corax. You will behold the cosmos with new eyes. You will marvel at the greatness of my exalted master. Come, he is waiting for you; he has always been waiting.”_**

Corax paused at the base of the hill, marshaling up his strength. He was so tired; so very weary of the constant struggle to remain true to his Father and the Imperium they had foraged together. It was time once more to make a choice; the hour had come round again to select a path. With a groan the Ravenlord began to climb the mound of skulls; they slid and shifted beneath his weight, their empty eye sockets filled with pools of blackness from which strange things watched, restless and hungry. The waiting abomination crouched down, its clawed hand still proffered in a semblance of friendship. Where its eyes should have been visible through the mask's eye-holes there was only an inky darkness that gave away nothing. The scent of the wine was intoxicating; Corax could feel his mouth watering in anticipation. The drink would restore and renew him, bestowing upon him the fortitude to face Curze anew. He would become mighty again and crush his false brother's bones in his hands; he would rip out the Night Haunter's throat with his bare teeth and he would _enjoy_ it, every _second_ of it as the traitor struggled futilely against him, his screams filling the shadows...

_**“Come, Corax.”** _

On hands and knees the Ravenlord ascended, hauling his exhausted body upwards towards the fateful summit. The bloody sky churned and roiled above the desolate boneyard; the whispers rose again, a hissing interwoven chorus of praises and promises. At last Corax gained the top and stood facing the raven-masked liberator. The creature rested its talons on the primarch's shoulder in a friendly fashion. Their touch was greasy and cold; Corax shook them off. “Show me your face,” he commanded, his voice dry and hollow in the arid breeze.

The abomination raised the iron mask as if it were a helmet visor. Corax stared at the near-identical visage, taking in the hideously mutilated face, the insanity pulsing behind the lidless black eyes, the maddened pain-grin stretched across the lipless mouth. ** _“Not long now, Anathema's son,”_** it whispered knowingly, rotting blood dribbling over its jagged teeth. **_“Your brother would see you defiled beyond all recognition, reduced to a ruined shell of a man with just enough sanity left to loath what it has become. It that the sort of end you are willing to suffer? You cannot defy him indefinitely. Such a waste of potential - my master would not have one such as you squandered so. Deliverance he offers, if you turn from the False Light that has blinded you for so long. Embrace freedom; choose truth, but above all: save yourself.”_**

The Ravenlord's twisted doppelgänger levitated the chalice before the primarch's face. Saliva ran down Corax's chin. Potency radiated from the liquid, heady and intoxicating. It would fill him, nourish him, soothe the many wounds of his mind and soul. Failure lay behind him, madness awaited ahead. Now a chance to escape beckoned, an opportunity take full control of his destiny far beyond the designs of Curze or Horus or the Emperor. A willfully-chosen existence of steady dehumanization was all he could show as proof of his loyalty to his Father and it would amount to nothing in the end. The Night Haunter would not stop, would not admit defeat; the torment would never end, the whispers would never cease... 

The flayed creature nodded as if sensing the Ravenlord's thoughts. **_“Do not allow Curze the satisfaction of your degradation, Corax. You are everything he knows he can never be and his envy will see you broken in the end. Far be it that such a fate should befall you. The Lord of Change will invest you with strength and purpose; he will open your eyes to reality unfettered. As much as you may despise Lorgar you should not discount the revelations he propagates. The Primordial Truth will set you free. Drink, o Lord of Ravens. Illumination and liberty are yours for the taking.”_**

Corax took the chalice in his hands; it was surprisingly heavy. The steaming liquid within appeared curiously thick and smelled of burned sugar and spiced blood. The cosmic stench of the warp assailed the primarch and he retched, his empty stomach clenching painfully. Yet a part of him desired to fill himself with it, desired the release it offered, the power it would impart. He thought of Curze lying dead at his feet, his reign of terror ended before it could fully begin. Dozens of worlds and billions of lives could be saved from that one action alone. Corax would still be the Deliverer; he would break free and wreck havoc across the _Nightfall_ , finding and liberating his surviving legionaries in the process. The death of their primarch would throw the Night Lords Legion into disarray and confusion, perhaps even crippling it permanently. None of their vile designs would come to fruition if he just drank –

Somewhere, impossibly, a raven shrieked, a lone distraught scream piercing the blood-stained firmament. The cry of warning stabbed into Corax's mind, disrupting the flow of his thoughts and yanking him from the mental fug he had descended into. He looked up from the chalice and met the maddened eyes of his future self once more. It was time to make the choice again, the correct one, the one he had to keep on making, like Stradon, until death was granted or victory won. Straining with effort the primarch spoke four words; merely uttering them felt as if he were driving his claws into his own hearts.

“No. I will not.”

Corax let the abomination's gift fall from his hands as his hearts hardened in resolution. The ornate cup struck the skulls they stood upon and overturned. An oceans' worth of rank viscus fluid poured down the mound and cascaded over the plateau, flooding the boneyard below. Clusters of many-eyed maggots and spiked leeches writhed and squirmed at the the Ravenlord's feet, quickly disintegrating as their sustenance was denied them. The ravaged doppelgänger stepped back and flung its arms wide, displaying its excruciated features with even greater prominence.

 _ **“You choose** **this, then?”**_ it hissed savagely, spraying rancid spittle. **_“You would rather die a miserable pointless death and allow your brother and his Legion to torture and murder millions all for the sake of your loyalty and pride?”_** The creature gestured crudely at itself, feigning shame. **_“Curze will hurt you, Corax, hurt you in unimaginable ways! Insanity will be a boon when it finally comes. Your sons will curse you with their dying breaths. But you can still deliver them; you can still choose a different path, alter your fate! The Lord of Change – ”_**

“ – can go kiss Lorgar's inked arse,” Corax retorted with a snarl. “Depart from me! I shall forage my own fate. I will not bend the knee to such foulness to save myself - I am the Emperor's loyal son and I will serve Him alone!” The primarch lunged at the warp-thing and dealt it a vicious blow to the jaw. After being chained for so long the simple act of striking back had never felt so cathartic. The creature's head snapped backwards as the Ravenlord waded in, raining a brutal succession of blows upon his would-be tempter. It offered no resistance; its ruined flesh sloughed off its shattering bones as Corax took it apart. Soon it had been forced to its knees with the Ravenlord standing above it, both hands wrapped firmly about its fragile neck. 

_**“You will…regret this…”**_ The thing rasped in a diminished strangled voice. It reached up with trembling hands to stroke Corax’s cheeks with the tips of its bone-talons in an abhorrent parody of affection. **_“You will call out to Him before the end…but He will not deliver you…call out to me…and I will heed you…will listen…”_**

 _“Be silent and be damned!”_ Corax roared as he ripped the doppelgänger’s head off and cast it back down the mound. The unseen raven shrieked again and suddenly the firmament tore itself asunder in a convulsive maelstrom of color and light. The primarch raised a hand to shield his eyes but the chains arrested the movement. An involuntary gasp of pain left him as he opened his eyes a second time, his ears popping and his senses reeling sickeningly as the _Nightfall_ exited the warp in a violent shudder that sent the hateful lumen flickering wildly. The cold reality of the cell reasserted itself with a shocking clarity and Corax gazed grimly down at Stradon's head, laid at his feet by Curze like some grotesque heathen offering. The capital ship groaned, its vast superstructure straining with the pangs of its rebirth back into the realm of the real. Then a pair of vox-transmitters hidden in the ceiling crackled to life as Konrad Curze addressed the entire fleet over the mass-relay vox-network.

_“Warriors of the glorious Eighth! My damned sons of the Night! The Thramas Crusade is upon us! Together we shall stretch out our claws and rip asunder the chattel-worlds of the False Emperor’s fraudulent empire! We shall confound the haughty Dark Angels of the vaulted First Legion and impress upon the Lion the limits of his might and prowess. Battle and butchery await – truth and torment are ours to give and theirs to receive. Let their screams shred the stars; let their blood drown the oceans! Death! Death to the Imperium! Death to all who appose us! We are Fear! We are Darkness! We are the Night Lords! Ave Dominus Nox!”_

Silence filled the cell once more. The lumen flickered twice more before stabilizing. Corax drew in a ragged breath, forcing his lungs to draw in the fetid air and flexing his weakened but still serviceable muscles. His body was as mended as it could ever hope to be under his current circumstances. The whispers had stilled and his thoughts were lucid and clear again. It was time to put some serious planning into his upcoming escape now that the fleet had left the immaterium. Without thinking the Ravenlord licked his lips, catching the blood dripping from his nose and wetting his parched tongue. His stomach cramped again but he let the pain roll through him and paid it no heed. His cheeks burned with a cold fire were the abomination had touched him, lending credence to the truth that it had not been a mere warp-twisted nightmare. Corax felt unclean, violated somehow. He recalled the vile fluid he had almost consumed at the creature's behest and retched again. No - _never_. He would never call upon it, never plead for its aid. This was _his_ battle, _his_ fight. He would win his own freedom and rescue his sons or fall in the attempt. There would be victory or there would be death; any other outcome - whether capitulation to Curze or to the things in the warp - would not even be entertained.

“I will come for you, Curze,” the captive primarch growled softly in the reeking gloom. “I will do what Father should have done long ago. I will kill you, _brother_ , and lay your entire bastard Legion low. I will not rest until I have slain every single Night Lord in the galaxy. I accept my role in this and will give myself over to death itself to see it done. This is my promise, my vow, my solemn pledge...”

Corax met Stradon's milky glazed eyes and nodded his affirmative as the dead legionary bore silent witness to his oath of moment.

“...and you know I always keep my promises, my son.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, it looks like I manged to crank out a chapter this month after all. I can't say for sure when the next will be written. Consider the story still on hold for the time being.
> 
> Please stay safe, stay smart and practice good hygiene during this time of international crises. I'm not worried about getting sick but there is a lot of fear-mongering going around and everyone needs to keep a level head.
> 
> Oh, and thank you for following and enjoying my story. :) Your support means a lot to me as always.


	9. IX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for blood, torture, mutilation and for brief non-explicit, non-consensual sexual contact. Night Lord Space Marines are not nice people (to put it mildly) and have no problem doing disturbing unpleasant things to their enemies/captives
> 
> This is more of an interlude chapter, as I wanted to take some time to focus on Corax's sons and what some of them are going through (plus several infamous characters were overdue for an appearance). The events take place while the Night Lords' fleet is still in the warp and occures two weeks before Corax is tempted by the daemon in Chapter 8. Enjoy.

**Kelivash the Cruel / The Eternal Question / The Crow and the Raven**

**XIII.**

“Are you still loyal, little raven?”

Sargent Kyrik Valps of the late Nineteenth Legion (17th Company) would have immediately spat acid in his tormenter’s sneering corpse-pale face if it weren’t for the spiked corrosive-resistant chain-gag digging cruelly into his mouth and tongue. All the Raven Guard legionary could offer by way of an answer was to give a throaty growl of defiance that only caused more red-tainted drool to run down his chin. The Night Lord grinned in amusement, displaying a fearsome array of augmented steel teeth as sharp as razors. “Good. Not one of you are worthy of joining this Legion, even if you all were to renounce the False Emperor. The only reason Rushal is tolerated is because the First Captain favors him. Corax is a coward and a failure; likewise, his gene-get must also be cowards and failures in turn, for they cannot help but follow their father’s example. How great must be your shame! But fret not, cousin. I am Kelivash the Cruel and I, too, do the deeds of _my_ father, so be assured you will reap fully the rewards your worthless loyalty has earned.”

A wheeled stainless-steel table covered in a white cloth had been brought in after the Night Lord; upon it were laid out a dozen knives of varying seizes and functions. Removing and setting aside his gauntlets, Kelivash selected a particularly nasty-looking blade and brandished it under the remains of Valps’ nose. The Raven Guard drew back lips from broken teeth in an improvised return smile, refusing to show fear in the presence of a son of fear incarnate. The Night Lord looked the naked legionary up and down, quickly assessing the damage already done and considering how he might expand upon his brothers’ work without falling into repetitively.

“Of course,” he continued, “Curze’s offer still stands and we must abide by it. Turn from the False Emperor and you will have a place among our brotherhood. Resist and suffer the consequences. Simple, yes? But still you persist in your oh-so-heroic stubbornness.” Kelivash cocked his head in exaggeration, considering. “Maybe you secretly desire to be punished. Maybe you think it’s what you _deserve_ for having failed your mission so magnificently.” An unpleasant laugh escaped the Night Lord as his mind seized on the thought. “Well, I’m here now, so let us see how steadfast you truly are.” 

Securely shackled by his wrists and ankles to an X-shaped iron-wrought torture-frame, Valps could do nothing as the traitor Space Marine’s serrated knife began its merciless ministrations. The Raven Guard’s skin had already been flensed from his face and his left eye had been pierced and burned out with a heated poker. A Night Lords Chaplin had shattered both his kneecaps with his deactivated crozius and Curze’s equerry, Captain Shang, had extracted the nails from his fingertips one-by-one, all the while promising Valps that if he cursed Corax and pledged his fealty to the Night Haunter he would be welcomed into the Eighth as a brother and be given new nails of curved steel. As he was the sole ranking Nineteenth Legion officer still loyal and breathing, the battle-brothers who had been captured along with him had been forced to watch the torture sessions, their captors hoping to break Valps first to further erode their moral. Instead, the Raven Guard sergeant had set an example for them all to follow, an example of quiet endurance and paitent resistance. Even when free of the gag Valps had said nothing to the traitor Space Marines, nor given voice to his pain, and his silent stoic defiance had marked him out by someone in authority as deserving special attention.

Taken from the excruciation decks and separated from the remaining Raven Guard legionaries still clinging grimly to life, Valps had been relocated to a lonely isolation cell deeper in the _Nightfall’s_ brig. He did know how long he had languished in the dark awaiting the return of his interrogators before Kelivash’s abrupt arrival. Did any of his brothers still endure or was he the last loyal son of Deliverance left alive aboard this shadowed hellship of torturers and tyrants? 

“You _are_ a tough one, I’ll give you that,” the sadistic steel-fanged legionary muttered begrudgingly, withdrawing the bloodied knife and licking it in idle contemplation. “Or perhaps –” the Night Lord abruptly tossed the blade to the deck and lunged at his immobilized captive “– my brothers’ imaginations have merely been found wanting!”

The darkened isolation cell echoed with Valps’ first garbled scream as the Night Lord stooped and sank his teeth into the mutilated flesh of the Raven Guard’s broad chest. With a vile ripping sound the traitor tore a mouthful of meat free from the body of the powerless Astartes. In his agony Valps threw back his head and bit down on the pain-gag, flooding his mouth with fresh blood in an attempt to stifle the craven sounds clawing their way from his throat. Kelivash raised his head, his dripping jaws crammed with red-raw genhanced muscle, his black eyes glittering in satisfaction as he assimulated innate information about his prisoner on a genetic level.Turning he spat the gobbet onto the deck beside his knife before running a white hand across his blood-smeared lips and favoring Valps with a dead-man’s maddened grin.

“I’ve developed quite a taste for this, Sergeant Valps. Think of all the interesting places I could bite you! In time I will make you scream loud enough to distract the Ravenlord himself from his misery!”

Reaching behind Valps the Night Lord unclasped the gag and tore it free in a welter of bloody spittle, lacerating the Raven Guard’s mangled tongue further. As Valps gaged and spat Kelivash clamped his jaws about the loyalist’s mouth in a debased parody of mortal affection, cutting his lips and driving his head back against the wall. Valps tried to bite back but the Night Lord hooked a finger over his lower teeth, keeping Valps’ jaws from closing as Kelivash probed his tongue about the Raven Guard’s ravaged mouth, tasting his torment the same way a nobleman might sample a bottle of choice wine. As he did so he slid his free hand down Valps’ muscled abdomen and reached between his spread legs. Valps shuddered involuntarily at the sudden violation and strained desperately to break free of the shackles as Kelivash pressed against him, the Night Lord’s hand and teeth working rhythmically together as he spoke directly into the mind of his captive.

+It is futile, cousin. You have been given to me and I will take everything. You will wish you had died on Isstvan V a dozen times over by the time I am finished. Life is nothing but a boundless sea of suffering and depravation that ends only in death – but even then does it truly end? The Word Bearers now preach otherwise. Be assured I will depart, but only when I’m satisfied you have embraced the timeless truth we Astartes of the glorious Eighth have always known.+

At the realization that Kelivash was also a psyker and that his defilement would come from two fronts Valps ceased struggling and instead channeled all his remaining energy into raising mental barriers in an attempt to keep the Librarian from pushing further into his mind. Emboldened by the legionary’s acquiescence the Night Lord pressed his physical advantage, the Raven Guard's helplessness all the more delectable as Valps was an Astartes like himself, a peer rather than a mere mortal human. The Space Marine could prevent nothing, only outwardly endure the humiliation while internally cursing his crippled agency. Despair and bitterness would claw and choke him with each recollection, Kelivash knew. Would he still be able to retain his dignity and honor in the presence of his battle-brothers despite knowing it had been stained and soiled? It was Kelivash’s duty to educate and enlighten the legionary, to drive the sergeant into providing a different sort of example for his warriors, an example more in line with the Night Lords’ ideals and goals.

+You are nothing, cousin – merely a blade of wheat before the scythe. I will change that. You will become both a spectacle and a lesson; a plaything and an exemplar to all. This is your purpose now. A pity your battle-brothers cannot be here to bear witness, though the pict-recordings should provide plenty of entertainment for later!+ 

Kelivash broke off his obscene ‘kiss’ with a vindictive leer as the Raven Guard climaxed uncontrollably in his grip, the unfamiliar shock of release causing a sharp gasp to escape the Space Marine’s torn lips. Satisfied, the Night Lord stepped back, contemptuously wiping his hand on a soiled apron sewn of tanned human skins as he did so. Valps forced himself to meet his tormenter’s mocking gaze, refusing to betray either humiliation or defeat. Kelivash licked his fangs and smiled condescendingly.

“Are you still loyal, little raven?”

 _Will he leave if I say no?_ The sudden thought pierced through Valps’ mind unbidden, like a treacherous blade slipping beneath his defenses and into his gut. Rage arose to choke him for even daring to entertain the notion; fresh defiance filled his hearts anew and at last he broke his long silence.

“I am a son of Corax the Deliverer; I am a warrior of the Emperor and a servant of His Imperium. I will always be loyal – even unto death! Go tell that to Curze himself, if you dare.”

“Is that so?” Kelivash’s voice was deceptively soft, almost gentle. Pressing close again the Librarian clamped both his hands on either side of the Raven Guard’s slick skinless face and leaned forwards until their foreheads were nearly touching.

+Then perhaps you should take some time to reconsider the objects of your loyalty.+

Valps ground his teeth as a sickening pressure built up behind his eyes and the temperature of the cell dropped with alarming speed, causing the exhalings of both Astartes to steam furiously about their heads. With all the subtlety of a chainsword boring into unarmored flesh the horrifying images were forced one after another deep into the loyalist’s mind with the same brutality as the knives, hooks, branding irons and teeth had been forced into his body. Blood burst from the Raven Guard’s nose and he finally screamed aloud, a raw unrestrained outburst of purest pain. He could not stop Kelivash’s psychic onslaught, his barriers were shattered as he was mentally bombarded with visions of – 

_He looked –_

+Behold your gene-sire!+

_– and saw Corvus Corax groveling like a beast at the Night Haunter’s feet, brutalized, broken and barely recognizable as a man or a primarch. The Ravenlord was begging his brother to accept his surrender. Konrad Curze threw back his head and laughed, raising his bloodstained lightning claws aloft in triumph…_

_He looked –_

+Behold your Imperium!+

_– and beheld Terra convulsing in agony as the fleets and armies of the rebel Warmaster assailed Mankind’s birth-world without remorse or mercy. A great burning filled the sky and a cry of exaltation arose from the throats of the attackers as the final defenses were swept away…_

_He looked –_

+Behold your Emperor!+

_– and witnessed the Imperial Palace in flames as warp-abominations and traitor Space Marines alike capered through its halls and chambers, slaughtering everyone they found inside. Horus Lupercal stood above the ruined gutted body of the Emperor, his Father’s single heart held high in his talons for all to see…_

_He looked –_

+Behold the galaxy to come!+

_– and gazed upon the destruction of Deliverance and the final stand of the last garrison of Raven Guard in its defense. Night Lord Legion commanders and Claw-masters ruled entire planets as cruel tyrants and warlords, enslaving entire populations who served them in terrified fealty. The Emperor’s dream was as gutted as His body. Hope was dead…_

+Yes, the death of hope! The death of the grand illusion of the weak! This is the truth! It is not beautiful? Exalt in the dying of the light, cousin! Bend the knee to the ascendent Night! Swear allegiance to Horus!+

 _“No!”_ roared Valps at the top of his tortured lungs as he writhed upon the iron frame, blood now streaming from his eye and ears, not knowing if he was denying the visions of carnage or the Night Lord’s insidious offer. _“Never! Never! Victorus aut Mortis! Ave Imperator!”_

+I will _break_ you, carrion feeder!+ Kelivash’s fingertips dug into the Raven Guard’s exposed twitching muscles. +I will slay your sanity and rend your flesh! Corax cannot save you! Accept the inevitable and stride into the new age as a god or resist and be cast upon the pyre that will consume the Imperium and all who defend it. _Yield_ , Sargent Valps! Yield!+

_“No…Aaarrrggg…no…I…ahhh…”_

Valps’ coherent thoughts were being fractured into a million pain-imbued shards, each one containing a memory of something or someone important that the Night Lord twisted and used to cut into his psyche. The pressure inside his skull increased and Kelivash’s pervading voice expanded to fill every corner of his being, consuming the very cosmos with its unforgiving presence. There was no avenue of escape – no way for the Space Marine cling to his defiance when there was nothing left to enable him to cling to anything; there was now only the one question, the _eternal_ question – eternally asked, eternally awaiting the correct reply:

+Are you still loyal?+

“Y-es…”

+Are you still loyal?+

“I…am…”

+Are you still loyal?+

“I…I…”

Valps teetered on the brink of mental collapse, his capitulation all but assured as the Librarian exerted all his power and focus on breaking the legionary who had put up such a dogged resistance. Kelivash’s eyes were closed in fervent concentration; the Raven Guard’s remaining one rolled aimlessly in its blood-drowned socket as the legionary convulsed and spasmed, no longer capable of comprehending his visible surroundings as the sole new reality comprised solely of the eternal question was driven deeper and deeper into the innermost core of his selfhood.

+Are you still loyal?+

“I…”

+Are you – +

“Stop, Kelivash, _now_ , before you kill a valuable prisoner and invite my wrath.”

At the abrupt order the question ceased rebounding around in the Raven Guard’s skull; eternity became finite once more and reality was reinstated. The Night Lord’s cancerous presence inside Valps’ mind was excised as Kelivash came to himself and rounded with a feral snarl on the two legionaries who had entered the cell unawares and dared to disrupt him. The first Space Marine was clad in the full terror-inducing panoply of the Eighth Legion’s Praetor Nox, while the charcoal-black power armor of the second was bare, bereft of all rank, insignia and company markings. Jago Sevatarion’s scarred face was twisted into a perpetually savage sneer and his massive chainglaive was resting idly over one pauldron, its presence a tactfully implicit threat. At his side Alastor Rushal, the fallen raven, awaited his new master’s commands, his hand resting lightly on the butt of his bolt-pistol. Upon recognizing the First Captain, Kelivash straightened and saluted, quickly concealing his anger. Sevatar ignored him and gestured in exasperation at the bloodied Astartes hanging limply on the torture-frame.

“I clearly remember telling you the sergeant was to be subjected to humiliation and further excruciation, not reduced to a drooling sanity-stripped dotard. Explain to me, brother, why you are utilizing your unsanctioned abilities when you’ve been given no leave to do so?”

With a great effort of concentrated will Valps raised his head and drew in a gasping breath, having forgotten for eons what it meant to breathe; he blinked and refocused his good eye, having forgotten ages ago what it meant to possess sight. He watched through a haze of crimson as his torturer attempted to justify himself to the most infamous of Curze’s accursed sons.

“He’s a tough one, my lord.” Kelivash apparently saw no need to gloss over the Raven Guard’s continued resistance. “What better way to demoralize his battle-brothers then for them to see their resilient sergeant reduced to a contemptible, ignoble beast? He was on the brink of breaking. The pains and humiliations of the flesh can only extend so far, captain; the violations that can be visited upon the mind, however, are as infinite as they are legion. Take a good look at him; Corax’s little raven cannot hold out for much longer. He is – ”

With a growl Sevatar pushed past the still-speaking Night Lord, his pitiless eyes locked on Valps’ flayed face. Striding up to the shackled Space Marine he rested the rim of his deactivated chainglaive against the Raven Guard’s stomach, putting just enough pressure against the weapon for the teeth to break the skin. “Name and rank,” he commanded implacably, his dark gaze never leaving his captive’s. Valps dragged in another agonized breath and bared his remaining teeth in a hollow smile. 

“Frak you…you bastard whoreson...I am…still loyal...” It was difficult to speak aloud after such prolonged and anguished screaming. Valps’ lacerated tongue felt like a swollen piece of meat as he moved it, his raw throat constricting painfully as he forced the words out through a mouth and lips mangled by the chain-gag and Kelivash’s mauling jaws. The Raven Guard could still taste the residue of the Librarian’s saliva upon his tongue and feel the ghostly vestiges of the visions still tugging at the frayed edges of his conscious mind. The image of Corax groveling before Curze flashed before his mind’s eye again and he immediately pushed it away ( _no, no, no; it is a lie, a lie, a lie_ ). Sevatar grunted in agreement and turned back to his battle-brothers, shaking his head.

“He _is_ a tough one, Kelivash,” said the Prince of Crows, now speaking in Nostraman, the mellifluous language of a now-dead world. “Why, it’s as if you’ve done _nothing_ to put out that persistent spark of loyalty. If psychic rape is your only recourse then I may have to find someone else with more imagination. Insanity is not the goal here – Curze wants another Rushal, another ‘traitor’ to parade before Corax the next time he boasts about how faithful his sons are. I’ve already claimed a captain –” Sevatar paused to pat Rushal on the pauldron, “– now we must win a sergeant. After that the rest of the Ravenlord’s brood will fall into line and Corax's failure as a leader and a primarch will be complete. Ultimately, it is our dear uncle who must be made to suffer; all other goals are secondary, understand?”

“Yes, First Captain,” Kelivash responded sourly as he stooped to retrieve the dropped knife from the bloodstained decking. The chastised Librarian glowered at Rushal, the model Eighth Legion convert and Sevatar’s pet, who met his stare with a completely neutral expression, seemingly unmoved by the sight or plight of his former Raven Guard brother. Had anyone lectured Sevatar as to how he should go about winning a rival legionary’s loyalty? No. Sevatar did as he pleased with Rushal and got his crimson-painted gauntlets licked in return. Likely the former Nineteenth Legion captain had already harbored some form of darkness or disillusionment prior to forsaking his oaths to Corax and Sevatar had merely exploited what he’d learned to his own advantage, thus securing an ally who wouldn’t stab him in the back or turn on him if he was ever supplanted.

Still, it galled Kelivash that he couldn’t also be accorded the same freedom to do as he pleased with Valps. Surely it would cause Corax as much grief to see one of his loyal sons reduced to a gibbering broken shell of a man as it would if Valps had turned his back on his primarch and joined the winning side of his own accord? Regardless of the end result it would still be a victory for the Legion. A bitter chuckle escaped the Night Lord. Sevatar looked at him curiously. The Librarian nodded back towards the Raven Guard sergeant. Valps was straining against his bonds again, heedless of his wounds, his mighty muscles bulging as he strove to free himself, his single ebony eye blazing with hatred as he looked upon Rushal, who watched him with a wary, vaguely contemptuous expression. 

“Sargent Valps is no Captain Rushal, my lord,” Kelivash explained in Nostraman. “Valps has a backbone. He is resolute, steadfast and fanatically devoted to Corax. He cares not that I’ve mutilated his flesh and defiled his dignity. You see my difficulty. The Edict of Nikaea no longer applies to us now that we are free of Imperial command. Why should I not use my gifts to secure Valps’ compliance? As I said, he was on the brink of yielding when I was interrupted. Perhaps he may suffer _some_ mental degeneration, but what of it? Even a half-mad ‘traitor’ can still be another knife in the Ravenlord’s bleeding hearts. I am a master of my craft and though my skills are somewhat rusted with disuse I can and _will_ secure victory. Give me leave, Sevatar, and Rushal will gain a gene-brother and the Legion another fighting asset...unless, of course, you know of other ways a raven might be snared and tamed.”

Sevatar tilted his head thoughtfully, then sighed and shrugged as if he’d lost interest in the whole affair. “The bond Rushal and I share cannot be replicated by you and Valps, witchkin. Valps is too grounded in his beliefs, too filled with righteous rage to see you as anything other then an enemy he must defy at all costs. Despair or madness might claim him if you fill his mind with abundant visions of ruin and death, but pain and hopelessness are not enough to win a warrior of his caliber over to our side.” Before the Librarian could object the Prince of Crows raised a gauntlet as he continued, gesturing pointedly between the struggling Raven Guard and the silently obedient Rushal in turn.

“Valps must be _seduced_ , Kelivash. He must be shown that a future exists for him outside the walls of this cell: a glory-filled future he can take part in, a future were he matters both as an individual and as a legionary – a future that will be denied him _if_ he remains loyal to Corax and the Imperium. Valps knows his Legion is finished and that his primarch has failed to see the Emperor’s will carried out. This is a bitter blow to his pride and he compensates for his shame by being an exemplar to his battle-brothers who are likewise burdened by shame at the Nineteenth’s failings. You must work to manipulate this shame; you must entice him with the promise of a golden future, one that he can partake in at the side of his Night Lord brethren. That is the kind of ‘traitor’ Curze desires: a son of Deliverance who willingly spits upon his oaths of loyalty because those he served are not worthy of his allegiance and that those who seek his fealty are those who can provide him with a meaningful existence and a chance to supplant his shame with victory and triumph. Right now Valps has nothing but hatred and defiance to sustain him. You must give him other motivations. You must lure him over with a vision he can _embrace_ , a vision were his actions result in regained dignity and honor rather than debasement and death.”

Kelivash looked thoughtful as he considered the First Captain’s words. Then he laughed aloud. The advice itself was sound – it was the context surrounding it that amused the Night Lord.

“A vision of a glorious future…ah, but who among our brotherhood truly believes in such a thing? We are Eighth Legion. An eternity of slaughter and carnage awaits us all; who are we to seduce outsiders with promises of false hopes and transient victories? Death is the only absolute, the sole end-goal of all things. Curze would laugh in our faces if he were here. After the conclusion of the Thramas Crusade the Night Haunter could rejoin the Warmaster’s fleets in triumph, with a wake of suffering and death trailing for entire star-systems behind him and the Lion’s excruciated carcass chained to the _Nightfall’s_ prow and even _that_ would bring him no joy or solace. Hope is a dead thing at best and a seductive lie at worst. I am better suited to preaching the gospel of pain and conducting the symphony of despair – but…” Kelivash paused, once more considering the shackled Space Marine fighting uselessly to get free.

“But?” Sevatar regarded him with eyes blacker then the darkest depths of Nostramo’s deepest foundry pits, blacker even then the airless void that now eternally clasped the shattered remnants of the planet in its cold embrace.

“I accept the challenge. But I will do it _my_ way, utilizing my abilities as I see fit.”

The Prince of Crows gave a brief nod of assent. “Very well; but he is not to be broken mentally. The primarch desires a willing defector to present to his boastful brother, not a mind-blasted cringing wreck. It is one thing to take everything from someone who is helpless; it is quite another to get someone to freely give you the one thing they still _do_ possess despite their helplessness. Never forget that, Kelivash. Valps must be seduced. He must make the choice of his own accord, like Rushal did. Curze expects nothing less.”

“His will be done, then.” Kelivash took a deep breath, exhaled, and realized rather belatedly that he was curiously tired. Expending his powers in such a manner after suppressing them for so long had been as draining as it had been satisfying. With a curt gesture Sevatar summoned Rushal to his side and the two Space Marines exited the cell without looking back. The Librarian placed the bloodstained knife back on the table alongside its fellows and reaffixed his gauntlets before returning to his prisoner. The Raven Guard had understood nothing of what had passed between the Night Lord and the First Captain but their conversation had allowed him some time to recuperate from the trauma of the psychic assault and his defiance had returned in full force.

“I am still...loyal...” Valps snarled vehemently, unaware of the hideously grotesque spectacle he presented to the Night Lord’s eyes. His body would heal from the torture in time, though his face would remain ruined forever; not even skin grafts could fully restore it now. Kelivash reined in the temptation to continue his work where he’d left off. How glorious it would be to strip the sergeant of his sanity one cognitive layer at a time, to violate and corrupt each thought and memory, to render personality and history down to mere animalistic thought-processes and reactions. He would’ve had the legionary licking his boots on all fours, had Sevatar just left him to his own devices; now a new challenge lay before him…

Baring his fangs once more, Kelivash reached out a gauntleted hand and rested it upon the Raven Guard’s mangled chest, splaying his fingers around Valps’ primary heart, feeling it thundering away like a mastercrafted engine under his palm.

“You will not see me again, little raven,” he told the Space Marine quietly, and it was true, after a fashion. “Others will come, and in the end you will bend the knee before the Dark King and come to regard your time spent in the service of the False Emperor as the most worthless years of your existence. Your Legion is dead; your men are decaying corpses on the sands of Isstvan and even now your weakling primarch abases himself at the feet of his victorious brother. Ash and blood and fire – such is the fate of the hypocritical Imperium. I am glad to be free of it, and soon enough so shall you.”

“Never…” Valps rasped again through his pain, his good eye glittering with impotent rage. “I will never kneel to your demented gene-sire…nor fight alongside the honorless traitors who massacred my battle-brothers…I am…still loyal…” The legionary’s voice finally broke in a wretched fit of coughing as the agony consuming his throat overmastered him. 

“You keep saying ‘I am still loyal’ as if it were the only true truth in this benighted bloodsoaked galaxy,” Kelivash said coldly, lowering his hand and stepping away. “But nothing can last forever, cousin. In time, there will be new truths to rule the hearts of men and immortals, which will simply be the old truths, their time come ‘round again. You cannot abide by this truth of yours indefinitely, Sargent Valps. Time makes a liar of all things and the hope you so stubbornly cling to will inevitably become your most fervent tormentor.”

Kelivash removed his skull-faced helmet from the mag-locks at his hip and smoothly donned it, pleased to be standing before the armorless, weaponless Raven Guard in the full battle-plate of the Legiones Astartes once more. Likely Sevatar had tried to raise him via his helm’s internal vox-link and had then come down to the brig to investigate when the Librarian had failed to respond to his hails – a small oversight with large consequences. No matter; he had accepted the challenge. Valps would yield, freely and willingly. Curze would be well-pleased with his work and Corax would know the grief of loosing another son to the Night Haunter’s unique vision.

“How crippling it must be,” he commented aloud through his vox-grille he made to exit the cell, “to have a gene-father who genuinely cares for you.” Behind his visor Kelivash grimaced in distaste at the notion. “Sentiment. That’s what makes all you little ravens so weak, what makes your primarch so weak. It is why we triumphed over the Nineteenth at Isstvan and it is why Horus will triumph over the Emperor on Terra. This galaxy has no use for sentiment, or for loyalty, or for honor, or even – dare I say it? – for truth. The Night is rising, cousin, and its wings are opened wide. You will come to see there is plenty of room beneath them for the both of us.”

Kelivash the Cruel departed and Kyrik Valps was at last left alone again in a manner quite similar to that of his primarch, though he did not know it. With the Night Lord gone the Raven Guard permitted himself to sag in his bonds, resting his head against one shoulder. He felt soiled, drained and hollowed out, the nightmarish visions still swimming in the depths of his subconscious like underwater predators waiting to surface when their prey grew heedless.

“I am…still loyal…”

The words had become a mantra, an anchor, a promise, a vow. All agency and purpose had been taken from him – only his loyalty remained, and upon its foundations he would erect a fortress of defiance upon which his foes would dash themselves against in vain: an unbreakable redoubt he would hold until his final breath.

“I…am still…loyal…” Valps whispered with quiet conviction into silent shadows redolent with the rich scent of his own spilled blood. Finally he closed his eye and allowed the darkness to take him and cradle him close.

“…still…loyal…” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YES, I AM STILL ALIVE!
> 
> Owing to complications due to the Covid-19 pandemic I had to move from the town and state I had lived in for 15 years. I now have a new house, new job, new housemates, everything. Now that things are finally settling down I can do some more writing, but I can't promise a regular update schedule. Still working a lot and all that.
> 
> Hope the chapter was worth the wait and I pray that you all are safe and healthy. :)


	10. X

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a reminder: the events in Chapter 9 (Kelivash torturing Valps) take place 2 weeks BEFORE the events in Chapter 8 (Corax's temptation by the daemon). The events in this Chapter occur in the middle, with seven days on either side. The Night Lords' fleet is still in the warp. Curze was overdue for having his own chapter and I wanted to further the dynamics between Sevatar, Shang, and Rushal.
> 
> CW for physical assault and an implied abusive relationship

**Ship of Shadows / A Primarch’s Decision / Understanding (And the Lack Thereof)**

**XIV.**

The _Nightfall_ was a dark and shadowed ship, a star-faring city-sized war-chariot that slipped like a dagger through the roiling turbulence of the warp, dutifully baring her lord and master from one blood-soaked, scream-riven war-zone to the next without complaint or remorse. Plying the currents of the immaterium the capital vassal of the Night Lords’ fleet sped towards the Thramas System and the myriad Imperial words contained therein, each one consigned to perish in nights of terror and days of torment under the unforgiving gaze and pitiless claws of the Emperor’s treasonous eighth son and those he begrudgingly led.

Within the _Nightfall_ darkness reigned supreme and unchallenged. Regardless of the ship’s day/night cycle and no matter the location – whether on the command bridge where the fates of entire words were decided upon or in the stinking bilge sumps were the lowliest of menials toiled – the lamps and lumens were kept forever dimmed to their lowest settings and the thousands of mortal Legion serfs, crewmen and armsmen went about their duties by the light of lamp-packs and handheld flash-lumens, while the midnight-clad posthuman sons of the Night Haunter stalked the corridors, unaffected as they went to and fro, installing dread even in the hearts of those men and women who faithfully served under them. The sunless world of Nostramo might now be nothing but scattered fragmentary pieces of a once-viable planet drifting aimlessly in the void, but the still-living humans who hailed from that sin-slain rock continued to live and labor in a perpetual gloom that was just as part of their souls as it was a signature aspect of their environment.

Ship of sentient shadows and breathing nightmares, a bringer of inescapable woe and a herald of the everlasting abyss, the _Nightfall_ was every inch the embodiment of the broken mind and blackened heart that ruled and guided her: the primarch’s judicial nature given mechanized form, armed and armored for bloodshed eternal. With the destruction of Nostramo the _Nightfall_ had become the Dark King’s sole seat of power, that high place were judgment and punishment was meted out in equal measure at the whim of the pale bloody-nosed demigod seated upon the command-throne. Now the Night Lords were free, and the Imperium they had once served would know their wrath. On and on the ship traversed the shifting tides of unreality, dark and darkened, and Death followed alongside her in the form of a vast battle-fleet capable of subduing and ravaging whole star-systems.

The _Nightfall_ was also a ship in danger. So argued Jago Sevatarion, First Captain of the renegade Eighth Legion. The Praetor Nox stood stiffly at attention before his recumbent primarch, his crested bat-winged helm tucked under one arm, his marred features tight with suppressed frustration. The comprehensive deta-slate he’d prepared lay upon the armrest of Curze’s chair untouched, unread. Sevatar knew he was taxing his gene-father’s patience but as the fleet’s estimated arrival within the Thramas System drew nearer the greater the risk to Curze, the capital ship and every Night Lord legionary aboard her became. Ever since Corax’s incarceration within the _Nightfall’s_ brig Sevatar had been unable to rest easy, and even as he oversaw preparations for the upcoming crusade, drilled the Alramentar and vented his inner vexations upon the flesh of the loyalist legionary captives, the background shadow that loomed ever larger in the nether-regions of his mind, the shadow that Corax represented, drove him to keep pushing the matter with increasing aggression in an attempt to propound upon Curze the looming danger his doppelgänger brother posed, both to himself and to the _Nightfall_ at large.

Curze seemingly cared little for the First Captain’s concerns and had utterly ignored his suggestions on what he could do to ensure Corax never regained his freedom. Now, as Sevatar stood in the primarch’s darkened chambers, glaring impotently as the Night Haunter idly scraped under a still-dirty fingernail with the tip of his combat blade while his equerry, Captain Shang, lingered at his side like an overly-anxious nursemaid, he wondered – and not for the first time – if the Ravenlord’s inevitable escape was an event Curze desired or even anticipated. Perhaps he anticipated hunting his opposite number throughout the bowls of the ship in a great game of cat-and-mouse that would confirm him as the superior shadow haunter. The thought put Sevatar’s teeth on edge. He knew Curze cared nothing for his Legion and loathed the sons of his gene-seed but Horus Lupercal had given the Eighth their orders and if they had a worthy chance of abetting in the False Emperor’s overthrow it was by successfully prosecuting the Thramas Crusade and preventing the First Legion from aiding Terra. Corax was not merely a threat to the Legion’s future endeavors: he was a _distraction_ , one that rated too high in the primarch’s inner thoughts.

“Sire, the – ”

“ – the Lion is the brother I should be concerning myself with, not the Ravenlord,” Curze interrupted, speaking the words exactly as Sevatar would have said them. The Night Haunter smiled his obscene fanged smile and a drop of blood tricked from his left nostril. Curze absently wiped it away with the back of his hand and leaned forwards, the sparse corded muscles of his flawless physique bunching as if he was preparing to spring upon his obstinate son. Sevatar stood his ground; his life was for the primarch’s to end any time he saw fit; until then he would do as his duty demanded. Still smiling, Curze beckoned him to draw closer.

“Come here, Sev.”

Gritting his teeth, the First Captain forced himself to step within striking range. The primarch reached out and gripped the rim of the Space Marine’s gorget, hauling him still closer. Even when completely divested of his power-armor and clad only in a linen loincloth the Night Haunter still exuded an unmistakable air of palpable menace and ruinous majesty. Shang had somehow talked him into removing his gore-stained battle-plate so it could be cleaned and maintenance by the ship’s Techmarines for the upcoming terror-campaigns. To Sevatar’s surprise the equerry had even managed to convince Curze to bathe, something he did less and less frequently as his mental deterioration grew more pronounced and he reverted back to his old pre-Crusade hygienic habits.

Cleaned of the accumulated grime that had soiled it for so long the primarch’s taunt alabaster skin seemed to glow in the oppressive darkness, yet it was not the numinous solar-like radiance that emanated from other primarchs such as Sanguinius or Lorgar; rather, it was like unto a pale sickly corpse-light that illuminated nothing, lacking in all warmth and splendor. The gene-foraged demigod was gaunt nearly to the point of being cadaverous, the sharp contours of his hip bones, collar bones and the fused ribs of his boxy carapace standing out in stark relief. The undulating shadows seemed to wrap themselves about him like a living cloak torn from a starless firmament, oppressive, malignant and utterly obedient to the Night Haunter’s will. As Curze dragged Sevatar close towards his face the primarch’s charnel-house breath assailed him and had the Night Lord not been so completely desensitized to the reek of death he would have blanched at the overwhelming stench; Curze refused to allow the apothecaries to perform dental work on his filed rotting teeth and not even Shang could convince him to seek treatment.

“You disappoint me, Sev,” whispered the Dark King and his deceptively soft admonishment was like the restless rustle of thirsty blades sensing fresh blood about to be spilled. Curze slowly caressed Sevatar’s scarred cheek with the edge of his knife as he spoke, his abyssal eyes alight with an unhealthy sheen as the shadows seemed to close in and enshroud them.

“How needlessly you fret! Have you forgotten the curse my Father so cruelly burdened me with? I have foreseen a future in which Corax escapes, yes, and I hunt him like an animal through the lower decks in a fateful clash of claws and shadows. I have beheld a vision in which he dies in torment beneath my blades, begging me for a swift end. In one I give him to you; in another I hand him over to Horus. But these are not the _true_ fates of the Ravenlord, Sev, for I have made _my_ decision and so they wither and fade as their surety is supplanted by the ascendant future, the one which will _truly_ transpire.”

Before Sevatar could register regret that he was not to be Corax’s executioner Curze shoved him away and stood, rising to his full rangy height, his long hair, now as smooth and glossy as a crow’s wing, swirling about his bony shoulders as he began to pace the floor on silent feet.

“Once we exit the warp select vanguard fleet elements will begin sweeping the Thramas System for non-colonized death-worlds. Once one is found that I approve of, Corax will be marooned upon it for the duration of the crusade. Upon its conclusion I will return to the planet to hunt him down and kill him before the Eighth rejoins the Warmaster on his push for Terra. Corax will pose no threat, nor will he be a _distraction_ – ” here the Night Haunter shot Sevatar a look that would have wilted the will of any legionary save him “ – while we deal with the First Legion. I must bend all my focus on the Lion and upon bathing the stars in the blood of his Dark Angels. How’s that, Sev? Are your concerns alleviated? Do you _feel_ any better?”

The last words were spoken with a contemptuous snarl as Curze ceased pacing and rounded on the Prince of Crows, returning to tower over him like an arbiter on the brink of delivering the harshest of judgments. Sevatar did not fear the primarch, nor did he adore him as a legionary should; nonetheless he knelt before the Night Haunter and lowered his eyes, knowing full-well he’d been pushing his influence far beyond what his rank entitled him to. A primarch was as far above a Space Marine as a Space Marine was above a mortal man and even one as broken and tortured as Curze still possessed an intellect and cognitive capabilities beyond even an Astartes’ enhanced mind. And Curze could scry the future: he knew how Sevatar would die, had even threatened to tell him once when he’d asked questions the primarch was not ready to answer.

“It is a solid plan, sire,” the First Captain said, careful to keep his gaze upon the decking. “I have no objections. Forgive my presumptuousness.” 

Mollified by the Night Lord’s self-abasement Curze returned wordlessly to his chair, one of the few pieces of furniture still capable of accommodating his size and weight that he hadn’t yet smashed during one of his vision-induced bouts of madness. Sevatar quickly rose and came to stand before the primarch again; he hadn’t been dismissed. Leaning back Curze resumed picking at his nails, humming an ancient Nostraman merchant ditty under his breath, still observing the First Captain behind hooded eyes.

“And what of the Ravenlord’s legionaries?” Sevatar asked after a few moments, thinking back on Stradon and Valps and how Rushal even now remained alone in his defection.

Curze loosed at self-satisfied sigh and spun the knife deftly between his long fingers. “We can’t have Corax getting lonely while he waits for me to come kill him, now can we? I am not like the uncaring Emperor, to keep a father and his sons so cruelly separated. Corax will be reunited with his loyal brood – not that he’ll derive any joy from seeing his little chicks again, especially as their combat capabilities will have been greatly compromised.” The Night Haunter gave a nasty chuckle. “Corax will have his hands full trying to keep them alive and when the last Raven Guard dies despite his best efforts he’ll have no recourse but to curse the Emperor and despair. Think of it, Sev: Corax is known as the Deliverer: the Emperor’s noble freedom fighter. Consider how his pride and his sense of self-worth will suffer when he fails to deliver his own sons! _And_ knowing as he fails that the Imperium he helped forge is burning all about him and he is powerless to save a single world of it! It is the perfect punishment! The most excellent and fitting of fates!”

Curze threw back his head and howled with hideous mirth. It was the most profoundly disturbing sound Sevatar had ever heard, and he’d heard many during his long years as a Night Lord Astartes. Shang grimaced and turned his face away, the primarch’s growing insanity paining him on an emotional level not shared by the other Legion commanders. Narrow-minded and fiercely loyal, Shang was the only Night Lord Curze did not hate, yet Sevatar knew him for a weakling and cared nothing for his statues as the Night Haunter’s confidante. Let him mope in despondent uselessness; Sevatar would see the will of the ascendant Warmaster done. Still… 

“But sire, suppose Corax perishes as well? Suppose he – ” the First Captain paused a moment before containing cautiously “– ends his own life in a fit of despair?”

Curze ceased his laughter and favored Sevatar with another lofty sneer. “Suicide? Ah! Then my triumph will be complete and eternal. A peer vanquished so profoundly that the faintest remaining flicker of hope is reduced to ashes and the Lord of Dead Ravens self-immolates rather then endure the everlasting shame of his defeat! What a worthy end for the so-called Deliverer! But no, Sev; my brother will not kill himself, nor will he allow himself to die in whatever inhospitable environment I leave him in. He knows the Night Haunter will come back for him; I will make it explicate and unequivocal that I shall do so. He will survive, enduring the unending nightmare of perpetual struggle so that he might yet slay me upon my return. Even after his sons perish and hope withers he will fight on, a living raging shell of a man animated solely by the desire to avenge his Legion and his honor upon the one who took it from him. Such will be the Ravenlord’s future; such shall be his fate. This is my decision and my will on the matter. I have already given the order.”

Sevatar bowed again in acknowledgment while Shang nodded approvingly. With Corax marooned on some savage backwater hellhole the Thramas Crusade could be prosecuted without that possible threat of the Ravenlord’s escape and Curze, knowing at all times were his brother was and freed from the incessant need to obsess over and torment him, would likewise be able to focus his attention upon El’Jonson and the ruination of the First Legion in accordance with Lupercal’s wishes.

“One more thing, sire,” Sevatar said, knowing he was about to be dismissed. “One of the Raven Guard prisoners, a Sargent Kyrik Valps, is currently undergoing corrective excruciation and psychic reconditioning on my orders. You desired another Nineteenth Legion defector to further disgrace the Ravenlord and I chose him, as he is the last loyal officer still living and a significant source of strength to the rest. Is he to be marooned with his primarch, or shall the Librarian Kelivash continue his work?”

Curze tilted back his head, his unblinking eyes contemplating the ceiling overhead as if the future could be descried from the positions of the plasteel support beams. Then a micro-shudder passed through him and he jerked violently as if shocked by an electro-prod, his head snapping forwards and his still-damp hair falling veil-like around his haggard face like a death-shroud. His concern plainly evident Shang placed a hand gently on the primarch’s lean arm and it was to Sevatar’s mild chagrin that Curze didn’t immediately snatch it away and backhand the legionary for his impudence. 

“No – _no_ …” Curze shook his head, his naked chest beginning to heave laboriously. “Have this Valps returned to the others – Corax will need dedicated officers serving under him to help keep his ‘legion’ functioning.” The Night Haunter chuckled again, though Sevatar now detected a hint of pain lurking within his tone. Then the primarch jerked a second time, and the First Captain belatedly realized that another wave of unwanted visions was being heralded by the sudden onset of muscle-spasms.

 _“Leave me!”_ Curze snarled abruptly, his aristocratic jaw clenched, his sharpened teeth grinding together in bitter pain. Blood was now leaking from both nostrils and his pallid brow was sheened in sweat. “You also, Shang; _now_ – before I forget myself and slay you both before your time.”

Shang lingered a perilous moment longer, his hand still resting on the primarch’s arm, unwilling to depart and leave his lord alone in torment. Sevatar snapped off a formal salute before turning on his heels and striding for the chamber doors, glad to be liberated from the insidious suffocating miasma that seemed to subsume his senses whenever he stood in his gene-sire’s presence. Shang followed quickly after him; not even the equerry’s dogged devotion was shield enough to protect him from Curze’s uncontrollable outbursts of mindless savagery.

Before the doors of Curze’s sanctum had finished sliding shut Shang gained on Sevatar and gripped his right pauldron, forcing him to halt. Swiftly Sevatar turned to face him, one part of him wondering what pathetic remonstrations the equerry intended to spout off _this_ time while another part casually calculated the possible ramifications and consequences of butchering the ugly Space Marine before the Night Haunter’s own doors in full view of the Terminator-clad Alramentar who stood guard on either side. Shang was wearing only his black duty robes while Sevatar was fully armed and armored; to end him would be so easy, so _satisfying_. The First Captain forcibly dismissed the temptation; he had already irritated his primarch enough for one day.

“What _is_ it, Shang?” he demanded, squaring up to the shorter brawnier Night Lord and allowing his contempt to drip like poison from each syllable. Without needing to be summoned Alastor Rushal materialized out of the shadows coalescing further down the vacant corridor and soundlessly positioned himself behind Shang’s unprotected back. All Sevatar had to do was give the faintest of nods and the fallen Raven would slit the equerry’s throat without hesitation. It was unnecessary, but Sevatar appreciated Rushal’s alert dedication and was looking forward to seeing his prize in action when his company fell upon the first Imperial world marked by Curze for slaughter and destruction. 

Unaware of the silent death lurking at his back Shang stubbornly met and held Sevatar’s scornful gaze, refusing to be cowed, his brutal features marred by frustration and agitation. “You don’t understand, Sevatar,” he said accusingly, his rough voice low. “You don’t know what it’s like for our father, to be always alone, always isolated. Yes, Corax is an enemy but he is also Curze’s brother and peer; he’s the only being on this ship the Night Haunter can remotely relate to in any meaningful way. You don’t grasp the personal sacrifice he’s made by deciding to maroon Corax –”

“Do you have a _point_ in telling me this?” interrupted Sevatar impatiently. “Curze is a primarch and there are only seventeen now left in the entire galaxy. Isolation is something he should have gotten used to long ago. Corax should have been left to Angron’s tender mercies back on Isstvan; having him aboard puts us all at risk – Curze most of all. You should rejoice that he has come to his senses, not go about wringing your hands over his _emotional_ state like some distraught handmaiden; it’s unworthy behavior for a legionary and if you were not Curze’s confidant I’d _gut_ you here and now – ” a long-drawn cry of agony cut off Sevatar’s threat and both Night Lords glanced apprehensively at the chamber doors. Shang moved as if he intended re-enter the sanctum before remembering his primarch’s last order; he turned back to Sevatar and managed to hide his surprise as he finally saw Rushal, who was now standing at the First Captain’s side and regarding the equerry in the same way a raptor might regard an unwary rodent.

“You don’t really care about him, _do_ you?” Shang glared hollowly at Sevatar, his eyes narrowing accusingly. “You’re a true heartless bastard, Sevatar; you’ll never –” 

All Space Marines, regardless of their Legion, are swift and decisive in all their movements but Sevatar appeared to move with a speed that was borderline paranormal as he seized Shang around the neck and smashed him across the face with his still-unfastened helmet. Rushal moved with almost the same swiftness, slipping behind the legionary once more and grabbing both of Shang’s arms as the equerry reached for the blade and boltpistol holstered at his weapons-belt; with a single fluid twist the fallen Raven wrenched the Night Lord’s arms behind him so brutally that one of Shang’s shoulders dislocated with an audible _pop_. With their already-formidable musculature amplified by their battle-plate Shang could not fight free of his assailants. Sevatar maglocked his helm at his hip and with his hand now free he gripped the collar of the equerry’s robe and tore it open from his neck to his waist. The unseemly sound of ripping fabric caused Shang to curse aloud as Sevatar’s questing eyes alighted upon what he had expected to find and a wicked smile of vindication twisted across his fearsome features. 

“Well, well, Shang – now _this_ is very interesting; how did you come by _these_ impressive battle-injuries? They certainly couldn’t have been inflicted by a brother in the sparring cages. I wonder what could have _possibly_ happened…”

With his raiment torn away Shang’s exposed chest and abdomen was revealed to be covered by scores of ugly half-healed claw-marks encrusted with clotted blood. Fading bruises also discolored his pale skin in splotches of sallow blue and yellow; the most damning wound, however, was the line of tooth-punctures marring the flesh of his right shoulder. Sevatar had seen Curze’s bare hands at work enough times to identify the marks they left behind on the bodies of his mortal victims. “Put him on his knees,” Sevatar commanded and Rushal dutifully forced the furious Night Lord into a kneeling position. The Prince of Crows bent Shang forwards so he could look over his back; as he suspected more ragged wounds were evident, many crossing over one another, some disappearing from view beneath the equerry’s breeches. In under an hour they would be completely healed and once Shang showered away the blood no trace of the encounter would remain. The First Captain’s lip curled in disgust and he stepped away, motioning for Rushal to do likewise.

“Unless you tried to forcibly manhandle the primarch into the bath you’ve been letting Curze take advantage of your devotion in ways no other legionary save _you_ would tolerate,” Sevatar snarled contemptuously. “Is _this_ the price you pay for trying to show him how much you _care_? And you dare accuse _me_ of being an uncaring bastard. The Night Haunter hates us all, Shang, even you. Pain and misery and torment are the only things he understands; are you _surprised_ he hurts you or do you _accept_ it in the vain hope he might one day come to be ashamed of his actions? You’re an even bigger fool then I took you for; Curze will never change, just like the galaxy will never change –”

“You don’t know anything about it!” Shang spat back as he arose, blood streaming from his broken nose, his left arm dangling uselessly at his side, his eyes blazing with a perfect mixture of rage and shame. “You don’t know how he suffers, how he secretly hates what he’s becoming. I do what I can for him and let the warp take the consequences! But _you_ –”

“Oh, go crawl off to the medicae bay and lie to the Apothecaries about what happened – or not; I really don’t care.” Suddenly exhausted with trying to understand and anticipate the emotional motivations of everyone who wasn’t him, Sevatar turned his back on the primarch’s battered son and continued onwards with Rushal ghosting along like a second shadow at his heels. Of course he didn’t understand; he never had, not even as a child. But he knew he was all the stronger for it; he’d never willingly submit to abuse in the hope of altering or alleviating someone else’s damned emotions. Still, Corax would soon cease to be a threat and Sevatar could conduct his campaigns in some measure of peace insofar as Curze’s well-being was concerned; there was some satisfaction to be had in that, at least.

“Now we must go break the news to Kelivash.” Sevatar said, almost wishing he had kept his mouth shut concerning Valps. “Be on your guard, Raven; there are few things that infuriate a Night Lord more then being deprived of the prey he’s in the process of leisurely wrecking.”

Rushal said nothing, his enforced silence one of the few reliable constancies in the First Captain’s turbulent world. The two Astartes almost paused again as another agonized cry echoed down the corridor, thick with a profound despair and edged with a hopeless fury. Sevatar kept walking; the damaged demigod who ruled the _Nightfall_ was beyond his aid – and Shang’s misplaced sympathy. There was nothing to be done except see the choices they’d all made through to whatever end.

 _To whatever end_ …yet Konrad Curze knew something of that end. Sevatar told himself he did not care. There was life and there was death; there was victory and there was defeat, there was hope and despair, freedom and servitude, love and hatred, and in the end the proud nothingness of everything would fall into the everlasting abyss of entropy and annihilation, leaving behind a perfect desolate peace as the cosmos’ sole inheritance.

 _“Between the ascent and the decent, between the departure and the arrival, between the dream and the wakening falls the Shadow...”_ Sevatar murmured, paraphrasing an ancient poet of Old Terra. Rushal did not reply. A final despondent cry reached their enhanced ears before they came upon a busy four-way junction. Sevatar kept walking and the _Nightfall’s_ ever-shifting shadows, recognizing one of their own, enveloped him in their passionless embrace. The Night Lord did not notice. He recalled the claw-rips marring Shang's back and chest and wondered if Curze was in the habit of attacking the equerry unawares, or if he ordered the legionary to stand still and endure the abuse without resistance. Or perhaps Shang had offered himself to the primarch of his own accord out of a warped sense of duty or obligation?

It didn’t matter. Decisions had been made and orders given. Each of them had made a choice, and each choice came with its own unavoidable consequences. Stradon had made a choice and was tortured to death for it; Rushal had also made one and now he silently haunted Sevatar’s steps. Horus had made a choice and so the galaxy burned; Curze had likewise made a choice and so the fleet journeyed to the far-flung Thramas System. Choices and consequences both great and small, each following the other, each circling one another… 

_to whatever end…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys; this chapter was fairly easy to write so I was able to update a bit sooner then I expected (I spend as much time editing as I do actually writing).
> 
> Also during the course of writing this chapter the plot/story direction pieces finally fell into place and I now have a solid grasp of where the fic will go and how it will end (5 more chapters, at least, will need to be written).
> 
> As always, thanks for reading and sticking to my story. :)


	11. XI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here's the rest of the Raven Guard! Valps' men finally make an intro! (they're all OCs) 
> 
> CW for self-harm, semi-graphic injury descriptions and prisoner abuse
> 
> I had fun writing this chapter. Hope you enjoy it. Please don't forget to read Chapter 10 first (its existence seems to have flown under the radar).

**Hauster Prepares for Battle / The Last of the Loyal Brood / We Endure**

**XV.**

It was time to prepare for battle once more. Sabestian ‘Asheyes’ Hauster of the late Nineteenth Legion (32nd Company) slowly raised his head as he returned to full awareness, willingly emerging from the near-catatonic quasi-consciousness of catalepsean node sleep to endure another bout of abuse and humiliation at the hands of former allies and brethren. Stifling a groan as his now-prominent hip bones ground against the cold deckplate he’d been resting upon (the communal holding cell was bereft of both bunks and bedding) the Raven Guard legionary stood, his sensitive eyes narrowing against the glaring light of overhead lumen strips that were perpetually kept cycled at their brightest settings. Five pairs of weary ebony eyes watched Hauster rise; two pairs did not. None of the able-bodied Space Marines currently incarcerated with him made an effort to join him. Hauster couldn’t fault them for it: energy-conservation was vital to survival and each legionary had his own methods of dealing with the upcoming confrontation. It was enough for Hauster to know that when the time came those that could still fight would, even though it was pointless, even though it was what the Night Lords wanted. As long as they continued to resist some measure of honor still remained to them, regardless of what the sadistic sons of Curze claimed to the contrary.

Stepping to the cell’s center point Hauster flexed his lean limbs, ignoring the incessant hunger gnawing at his belly and the sharp phantom-pains pulsing through now-mended flesh still unused to the absence of near-constant agony. He had lost weight, an appalling amount of it since the Dropsite Massacre disaster and the following guerilla war on Isstvan V, but that was no excuse; the Night Lords would come soon and Hauster wanted to be ready for them. Spreading his arms like a bird preparing to take flight the tall Raven Guard began as series of warm-up exercises every warrior of Deliverance knew and practiced since their years as Novices. Hauster refused to allow imprisonment or torture to interfere with his daily physical regimen and until the traitors saw fit to deprive him of a limb or two he would continue to keep his body tuned and primed for combat, as befitted a Space Marine of the Legiones Astartes.

There was plenty of room for him to move about freely without disturbing his battle-brothers (the cell was large enough to accommodate fifteen fully-armored Astartes; now it only housed eight starved naked posthumans). Taking advantage of the available space Hauster quickly completed his warm-ups and moved on into the various sparring and boxing postures and moves he’d been taught in his early years, some even predating his ascension. Deprived of bolter and blade he fell back on bare hand-to-hand combat tactics and personal defense disciplines. His body was still his own – regardless of what the murderers of the Eighth Legion did to it – and so the whole of it would serve him as a weapon until his life was ended for good. Spinning about the center of the cell in a blur of kicks, punches, leaps, thrusts, jabs and uppercuts the Raven Guard could almost forget the pain and the degradation, forget the indignity and the shame of failure and defeat; allowing his training to take over he let go of the crippling memories and became a being of pure movement and motion – the cell seemed to vanish and even the constant reek of old blood and unwashed bodies faded from his awareness; his hearts beat, his blood sang, and for a few blessed moments Sabestian Hauster knew peace.

It could not last, of course. Often Hauster was tempted to keep on pushing his body on until he finally collapsed from utter exhaustion, no easy feat for an Astartes. But then he would have no strength to aid his brothers when the Night Lords came to rough them up in an unequal clash of fists and fury. With a great effort of willpower Hauster slowed his movements until he came to a complete stop in the center of the cell, right where he had initially begun. His heavily-scarred alabaster skin was now sheened with sweat and his sunken chest heaved with exertion. There was no Legion serf at hand to provide him with a dampened cloth and a jug of cool water; no mesh bodyglove and polished sable black power-armor waited to be donned and no weapons awaited the firm grip of his gauntleted hands. He would never know those simple pleasures again, not unless he bent the knee to Curze and foreswore his oaths to Corax and the Emperor. Taking deep lungfuls of recycled air to steady his breathing Hauster began to slowly pace about the cell; it was time to inspect his brothers and get a feel for the legionaries’ current moral.

Brother-Sargent Kyrik Valps still hadn’t been returned to them and in his continued absence Hauster served as acting-sergeant to the seven Raven Guard Space Marines who still lived, albeit begrudgingly. The last of the Nineteenth Legion Astartes were in a sorry state and apart from obeying Valps’ standing orders to protect Morkaan and Feljak they otherwise kept to their own parts of the cell, each man lost in his own private ruminations, each one growing more taciturn as time passed. They were all slowly dying, Hauster knew, bit by bit, peace by peace, the violent bloody deaths they had expected to earn under the chainblades of the World Eaters supplanted by the slow degrading agonies suffered under the knives of the Night Lords. Hauster would never forget – even if he managed to live for ten thousand years – the way Valps’ skin had been flensed from his face, leaving a grotesque red-fleshed skull in its place. All but Feljak had been made to watch, as the deed had been carried out right in the cell itself. Stradon and Japell had still been alive then, as had Borrik and Kletcher. All of them had drawn strength from Valps’ steadfast endurance but after their captors had whisked the sergeant away to some private torture chamber moral had all but withered and the Night Lords had mocked the ease with which the Raven Guard warriors succumbed to death in his absence.

“We will break him, Asheyes,” two of them had promised Hauster as they whipped him with lashes braided out of entwined conduit-cabling and razor-wire. “We will reduce your valiant sergeant to a groveling cringing animal, just like your primarch and then we’ll come for you, _acting_ sergeant – unless you bend the knee; after all, what has the Emperor ever done for you, except throw you into one bloody war-zone after another simply to further His own selfish self-serving ends? Will you not accept the truth? Are you still loyal?”

For now, though, the torture had stopped, after a fashion. No longer were Hauster or his brothers taken from the cell to be individually interrogated and tormented. Valps remained the exception and Hauster now doubted he still lived (a belief he prudently kept to himself). Perhaps too many of them had died and the Night Lords were reluctant to hasten the demise of the survivors; or perhaps they were merely allowing their prisoners some time to recover before a fresh round of pain-trials commenced. Still, as long as they continued to draw breath no true mercy or lasting peace would be granted them; for regardless of the new orders the sons of Curze just couldn’t seem to help themselves.

Hauster went to Hektor Lychor (89th Company) first. The legionary was down on his hands and kneels gabbling unintelligibly to himself as he repeatedly slammed his forehead against the wall, his face a mask of blood as the perpetually healing skin was perpetually torn open anew by the unending succession of blows. Lychor had been mad for some time now. Wounded and disoriented following the Massacre he had been quickly captured by a squad of Emperor’s Children legionaries and had suffered horrendous things at their hands before finally escaping to wander the ash-wastes of Isstvan V until he was eventually found by a roving band of Raven Guard gruella fighters. Although he still possessed a tongue Lychor no longer spoke rationally and under the cruel attentions of the Night Lords his fragile mental state had only worsened. But he still resisted, still fought back, and because he still endured his battle-brothers tolerated his behavior and did not try to discipline him. Looking down at him Hauster felt nothing but pity in his hearts and hatred swelled in his chest at what the traitors had done to this worthy son of Deliverance.

“Brother Lychor.” Hauster kept his voice neutral and firm. The mad Space Marine rocked back on his haunches and looked up at him, grinning inanely through the blood and filth that covered his battered face.

“The traitors will come soon – be ready.” Hauster had learned early on that it was always best to keep things simple with Lychor. The Raven Guard emitted a wet chuff of acknowledgment before repositioning himself and continuing in his relentless self-abuse. Hauster moved on; there was nothing he could do for Lychor except treat him like he was normal and hope he remained capable of differentiating between friend and foe.

The next legionary he came to was Anthany Rhayes (4th Company). He was sitting with his back to the wall and his knees drawn up against his chest. His Night Lord torturers had recently neatly severed the tips off each one of his fingers. Rhayes kept putting them in his mouth one at a time and sucking on them, gently worrying the mutilated digits with his lips and tongue with the absent air of a man who is unaware of what he is doing. Rhayes was still sane, but lately his eyes had gone dull and distant in a way Hauster found concerning. He secretly suspected Rhayes was going to break soon; the hunch was purely instinctual: Rhayes had said or done nothing to indicate he was considering forsaking his oaths – but something was cracking inside; Hauster could sense it even if he couldn’t articulate it.

“Brother Rhayes.” Now he hardened his voice with an edge of command. Slowly Rhayes raised his head, removing his left forefinger from his mouth as he did so. He regarded Hauster with stricken eyes that gleamed with a light of quiet desperation.

“Are you still loyal?” Hauster asked mercilessly, hating that he had to ask one of his own brothers the same question that had been asked of them all hundreds of times by the Night Lords themselves. Rhayes didn’t answer. He just stared dully at Hauster; Hauster stared right back and mentally began counting backwards from ten to one. When he reached three Rhayes asked instead, “What _is_ loyalty?” as if he had recently forgotten and needed someone to re-illuminate him. But Hauster’s enhanced hearing caught the hidden note of weary contempt underlying the Raven Guard’s words. With a snarl he sized Rhayes by the neck, wrenched him to his feet and slammed him bodily against the wall in one fluid movement as a surge of rage flared through him.

 _“Are you still loyal?”_ Hauster hissed furiously into Rhayes’ careworn burn-scarred face. The legionary flinched in his grasp and looked away from the acting-sergeant’s searing gunmetal-gray gaze. _“Yes!”_ he rasped at last, gripping Hauster’s arm with both hands. “Throne of Terra, Asheyes; yes! I’m still loyal!”

Satisfied (somewhat), Hauster released Rhayes and continued his inspection as if nothing unusual had occurred. He reached Frollac Ullrav and Jakob Anrett next; the two ‘young’ Astartes were unique in that they had both served in the same company (the 65th) and had been friends prior to the Isstvan campaign despite being assigned to different squads. They stood and saluted Hauster respectfully, Anrett supporting Ullrav, whose broken legs hadn’t yet fully mended during the reprieve. “We’re ready to bring the pain, sir.” Ullrav assured Hauster while the tongueless Anrett signed: _Victory or death!_ _Time to crack some skulls!_

“Brother Ullrav; brother Anrett – you do the Legion great honor.” Moved by the legionaries’ enthusiastic defiance Hauster saluted them formally in return before cautiously approaching Clain Lowen (51st Company), who was still in the grip of catalepsean node sleep. Big and massively muscled even for a Space Marine Lowen was their strongest fighter, his physical might still imposing despite the meager rations of tasteless nutrient paste their jailors saw fit to feed them. He crouched in the corner next to Morkaan and Feljak, facing the cell’s bulkhead and the shimmering disrupter field that crackled across it, his entire body poised to charge at a moment’s notice.

“Brother Lowen?” Lowen twitched slightly and then he came to himself. His eyes flashed up to meet Hauster’s briefly before fixating on the bulkhead again. “The bastards are _late_ …” he growled, his stance shifting incrementally, “…and I don’t like to be kept waiting.”

Hauster smiled then, dimly feeling the foreign tug of muscles pulling his lips upwards to form an expression that had become unfamiliar to him, alien and strange. It lasted for less then a heartbeat; then he turned to face Morkaan and Feljak. As always Fallax Feljak (93rd Company) lay on his back, his head resting on Morkaan’s lap, unmoving and unaware of what transpired around him. During the final battle on Isstvan shrapnel from an exploded World Eaters’ Whirlwind missile had cracked his war-plate and penetrated deep inside his chest and guts, shredding vital organs and causing him to fall into the death-like healing-coma only a trained Space Marine Apothecary could revive him from. Why the Night Lords had retrieved him from the battlefield had at first been a mystery to Hauster; now he knew better. Feljak was a Veteran; a native of Terra he had served in the Great Crusade from its very beginning, back when the Emperor Himself had led the Legions across the stars, long before Corax had been discovered and reunited with the Astartes foraged of his gene-seed. With the Raven Guard all but exterminated Feljak was a final link to the past, a physical embodiment of the Nineteenth Legion’s long history and accomplishments, one which the Night Lords threatened to extinguish at any time. 

“Brother Morkaan.” Hauster had nothing but respect for the legionary and saw no reason to hide it. Glannas Morkaan (110th Company) nodded his acknowledgment, his tired eyes still grim and resolute. Out of all of them he had perhaps suffered the worst. He’d lost his right hand to a World Eater’s chainsword and after his capture a Night Lord had wasted no time in depriving him of the left. High-end augmetic replacements had been promised him as a reward for recanting his oaths of allegiance to the Imperium but when he’d scorned their offer his torturers had retaliated by sawing off both his legs below the knees to provide him with more incentive. Unable to walk, fight or feed himself Morkaan now relied upon his brothers for both protection and nourishment; he, in turn, watched over the comatose Feljak, using his body as a buffer between the veteran’s head and the hard filthy decking or, such as when the Night Lords came, as a shield between their armored fists and Feljak’s vulnerable flesh.

“They’ll come,” Morkaan said softly, as much to himself as to Lowen. “Curze’s cowards will come for their fun, like always. Can you strangle a few of them for me, brother Lowen?”

“With pleasure, brother Morkaan,” rumbled Lowen eagerly as he flexed his powerful battle-callused hands. None of them had managed so far to kill one of their doppelgänger cousins since their incarceration but the possibility of doing so always kindled a fire in the eyes of those whose fighting spirit burned the brightest.

“I think I’ll rip out a throat or two,” Ullrav said suddenly with a careless grin. “They never give us enough to drink anyways – maybe then they’ll get the message.” At his side Anrett nodded, flicking his dark matted hair out of his eyes as he enthusiastically signed: _We should hit their leader all together. Tear him apart before the others stop us. Then we could have a decent meal!_

“They’ll take Hauster next, you know,” Rhayes said abruptly, his bitter words cutting into his brothers’ uncharacteristic banter. The morose legionary had lowered himself to the floor again and sat with his head bowed upon his knees. “Valps is dead; they murdered him, just like Stradon and the rest. That makes Hauster our leader; that means they’ll come for him this time. They’ll do us in slowly, one man at a time. Lately I’ve been wondering: who’s going to be the last?” Rhayes laughed humorlessly then raised his head to eye them all with a deadened stare. “Don't any of you ever think about it? About who will be the last to die?”

“Valps isn’t dead,” Ullrav retorted firmly, refusing to let his enthusiasm be snuffed out. “If he had succumbed the Night Lords would have thrown it in our faces by now. We must endure for the sake of the Legion, either together or apart, until Corax escapes and delivers us. _Then_ we shall have our righteous vengeance!”

Lychor paused in his head-smashing to babble something incoherently defiant and approving. 

Rhayes spat upon the deck contemptuously. “You think the Night Haunter is going to risk Corax getting loose on his capital ship? Stop being so naïve, Ullrav; our primarch is likely in a worse state then dear Brother Morkaan. We must not look to the Ravenlord for salvation. Our Legion is broken and we live only to suffer at the victors’ whims. Is this a fate we are content to embrace? Is this to be the price we must pay for our loyalty? The galaxy as we know it has changed forever; the Emperor’s own chosen son marches against Him with the backing of _eight_ Legions, and those are only the ones we know of. Why, _all_ the Legions save the three that were sent to the Isstvan System to bring Horus into account might have joined his cause. We must consider – ”

“Sanguinius would never betray the Emperor!” growled Lowen, outraged at the implications Rhayes was hinting at. “When the Great Angel learns of Horus’ treachery the Ninth Legion will fall upon the Warmaster and his cohorts in a storm of fire and ruin. And let’s not forget the Ultramarines or the Space Wolves – neither Guilliman nor Russ will allow Lupercal to go unopposed. We are not without allies, brothers. We may have lost at Isstvan but this war is far from over!”

“If Fulgrim and Lorgar can side with Horus then so can Sanguinius and Guilliman,” countered Rhayes fiercely, refusing to be deterred. “And so what if they do not? How will it improve our lot? Can they save us from the knives and boots of the Night Lords? Will Sanguinius himself descend and snatch Corax from Curze’s bloody claws? No. We are forsaken; no-one is coming to deliver us. We need to –”

“Be _silent_ , Brother Rhayes,” Hauster’s command was as cold and deadly as the Raven’s Talons on a starless night. “Your words reek of despondency and cowardice. Guard your thoughts and steel your hearts, all of you. Our foes are coming and we must give them no cause to exalt in our defeat. Have you forgotten who we are? We are Raven Guard! We are the sons of Corax! We are loyal to the Emperor and to the Imperium of Man! _Victorus aut Mortis!_ _Ave Imperator!”_

“Victorus aut Mortis!” Ullrav, Lowen and Morkaan roared defiantly in unison. _Death to the murdering traitors!_ Anrett signed savagely, his black eyes burning with hatred. Lychor finally stood upright, threw back his head and loosed an animalistic howl of rage more akin to the battle-cries of the deranged World Eaters. Rhayes said nothing. Feljak did nothing. Hauster thrust a fist into the air, imagining he gripped a crackling power-sword and stood armored and proud at Corax’s side, ready to fight and die for the Emperor and the dream of Unity. “We fight!” he cried furiously, drawing strength from the defiance of his brothers. “We resist! We _endure!_ ”

 _“You bleed!”_ snarled an ugly mocking voice over the cell’s hidden vox-hailers as the overhead lumens were suddenly dimmed to more tolerable levels. _“You suffer!”_ The bulkhead opened and the energy field flickered out. Five armored Night Lords charged into the cell, their gauntleted hands clenched, their pallid helmless faces leering as they each selected a captive. _“You scream!”_ They bore no weapons, neither ranged nor close-combat, not even their personal knives. This was to be the work of fists and boots. Two others held the entrance, their gauntlets studded with spikes, their red eye-lenzes gleaming menacingly in the gathering gloom.

_“Craven sons of the Carrion Fowl! Vanquished warriors of a failed Legion! Look upon our glory and despair, for we have come for you!”_

It was time for battle. Sabestian Hauster sprang eagerly at the Night Lord who rushed him, quickly recognizing him as one of the torturers who had whipped him until his skin hung in raw mangled strips from his brutalized back. His name was Skalx and he had boasted of slaying twenty-three loyalist legionaries with his chainglaive during the Dropsite Massacre. Hauster internally vowed he would avenge them this hour or die in the attempt.

“Kill them all! For Corax! For the Emperor!” the acting-sergeant ordered his men as the cell erupted into a familiar pattern of brutal long-anticipated violence. Hauster was not naïve nor given to bouts of irrational optimism: he knew this was what the sons of Curze wanted. But _he_ wanted it just as much; it felt so _good_ to be able to strike back, to move freely unrestrained by chains and shackles. In that moment the smile on his own pale face was just as vicious as the sneer plastered across Skalx’s consumptive features.

 _“We endure!”_ Hauster roared over the din as he closed with his traitor counterpart. Then Skalx’s spiked gauntlet landed its first blow and all the pain and fury and shame and defiance arose and engulfed the Raven Guard in a maelstrom of frenzied instinct that swept away all rational thought, all memory and restraint. He sank into a red-tinged white-streaked void were nothing existed except the agony and the one who inflicted it. Ferociously Hauster fought back, uncaring that his foe was encased in ceramite while he possessed nothing but his bare fists and nails and teeth. He would…

_…endure…_

That word, the word he’d spoken (in another life?) followed him dauntlessly down into the blackness, trailing behind in the form of an errant feather drifting on the crimsoned currents stirred by his passage. He clutched at it with the remnants of his mind even as his nails shredded themselves upon the Night Lord’s midnight-blue armor and the skin of his knuckles ripped free. Skalx’s gauntleted fists continued to pummel him: he felt bones break; smelled blood; heard howls of pain that might have been his own – yet it meant nothing to him because he would…

_…endure…_

Yes, he would endure and avenge the Nineteenth Legion, somehow. Corax would come. Corax would deliver them if Hauster could only just…

_…endure…_

He must not die - not now, not ever. So many brothers had already perished on Isstvan; why should death be permitted to take them all? If they all died how could they bring about victory? Hauster fought on, only dimly aware that he was being slammed bodily against a wall. His mouth was full of blood. He could hear Skalx laughing. Nearby someone else (Rhayes?) was screaming in abject agony. More laughter: the vindictive laughter of bullies, traitors and sadists. Their laughter filled the encompassing void, intermingling with the pain. “Are you still loyal?” a soft voice hissed directly into his ear. Hauster couldn’t reply; he’d lost the capacity for speech. Still, even that didn’t matter as long as he could…

_…endure…_

The breath was driven from his lungs in a spray of bloodied spittle as he was grappled and forcibly hurled upon the decking. A heavy boot pressed down upon his chest. “Had enough, Asheyes?” Skalx sounded like he was speaking from across the other side of the galaxy. Hauster drifted through the void, still clutching at the errant feather. He could see it clearly now in his mind’s eye: it was the sleek black pinion of a great raven. Hauster shuddered as he realized it was slick with fresh blood…

“Corax…” Just uttering the name of his primarch was as torturous as anything they had done to him so far. 

“He cannot deliver you, _acting_ sergeant – you know this in your hearts. Are you still loyal?”

 _…endure…endure…endure as_ Corax _endures…_

 _“Yes,”_ Hauster gasped, feeling an odd sort of peace settle upon him, a peace that existed independently of the cell and the brutalities taking place within it. “Very well; then I’ll see you again later, Hauster.” The pressure on his chest vanished. Skalx was leaving; the fun was over for the day. There was no more laughter, no more screams. Hauster began to drift upwards, the blackness around him dissolving as his posthuman physiology began working vigorously to repair the internal damage caused by the beating. The raven feather faded from his mind’s grasp even as he struggled to keep hold of it. So Hauster opened his eyes instead (when had he closed them?). Hektor Lychor was crouching over him, his face a purple swollen mess of blood and bruises, his left eye pulped in its socket. He smiled triumphantly down at Hauster. Sebastian Hauster smiled back.

They had endured. For now, it was enough. 


	12. XII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter concludes Valps' story-arc and is a direct continuation of Chapters 10 and 11 respectfully.
> 
> CW for semi-graphic depictions of injuries 
> 
> I'm going to be taking a writing break for a bit. It's been great creating new characters and continuing the story but I'm a slow meticulous writer and it ends up taking up large portions of my time. I want to focus on other things for a while.
> 
> I hope you all have enjoyed the story so far. Constructive criticism is always appreciated

**False Brother / A Choosing of the Ways / Loss and Reunion**

**XVI.**

“This…this is a _lie_ …” Kyrik Valps ground out between clenched teeth, his one good eye glazed with inner anguish and denial. “ _You_ are a lie. I do not accept this…I _refuse_ to accept this…”

Sebastian Hauster smiled in mild amusement, his handsome aristocratic features calm and serine in the face of the Raven Guard sergeant’s vehement declaration, his unusual gray eyes brimming with a quiet pity that Valps found far more unbearable then the looks of arrogant contempt or triumphant scorn most Night Lords generally favored him with. It was all the more loathsome because had the _real_ Sebastian Hauster ever regarded him in such a way it would be _exactly_ as his impersonator now portrayed it; Hauster possessed very expressive eyes and that a Night Lord was capable of replicating the subtle emotions they conveyed so perfectly was so abominable it made Valps mentally sick.

“There are many things in this galaxy that are lies, Brother-Sergeant; I am not one of them. Once I believed in lies; once I even _fought_ for the sake of lies – but no more. I am free now. You can also be free, brother; free of this senseless suffering, free to help forage a new era of enlightenment and illumination; free to fight for your own truths.” Valps cursed inwardly: even Hauster’s voice and mannerisms were flawlessly conveyed. Still, he refused to be fooled. Sebastian Hauster would never break; the faithful Astartes was his strong right hand, a respected legionary in whom Valps had come to trust in implicitly. Whenever the Night Lords separated him from his men Hauster could be counted on to lead them and keep their waning hope from withering in the face of overwhelming pressure.

“Damn you, Kelivash…” the Raven Guard snarled bitterly, powerless as always to prevent this new method of attack but determined to put up some resistance nonetheless. “I’d rather suffer the attentions of your depraved brothers for hours on end then allow myself to believe for a moment in your clever little charade. My acting sergeant would never recant his oaths…Hauster is twice the legionary any of you will ever be…so drop the act, witchkin. Hauster is still loyal…as am I.”

“Your nose is bleeding again, Valps,” Hauster remarked dryly as he continued to bathe the shackled legionary, his touch gentle and respectful as he used a warm washcloth to carefully clean away the dried blood and grime that covered the countless livid partly-healed knife wounds that scored Valps’ exposed flesh. As considerate as his actions were Valps still couldn’t stop from tensing and flinching each time physical contact was made. Weeks (or months?) of near-constant abuse had made the Raven Guard’s body was so accustomed to expecting and experiencing only pain and humiliation from the traitors’ hands he was rendered incapable of deriving any pleasure from the much-needed cleansing. Each touch of the soft cloth, no matter how soothing it should have been, was to him merely another form of torture, one specifically designed to emphasize his helplessness and lack of agency.

As the Night Lord cleaned him of the biological residue left behind by the various defilements Valps almost wished for the knives, whips, electro-prods, pain-spikes and branding irons to return again in the hands of visible leering foes, just so he’d have something legitimate to flinch at and despise. This was worse, somehow; more demoralizing then anything any Night Lord had done to him thus far, worse even than when the Librarian had ravaged his mind with images of the Imperium’s agonized collapse and the Emperor’s demise at the talons of Horus. To have such an intimate act performed by a hated foe masquerading in the guise of a loyal brother was an assault of the most insidious kind, but weariness had overcome the legionary and the rage that normally boiled his blood and lent him the strength to endure did not rise, leaving him feeling empty and hollow. Kelivash noted his exhaustion and lack of vitriol; sensing the Raven Guard’s weariness the Librarain adopted a mournful air, as if his own actions pained him and he did them only out of necessity for the loyalist’s own good. 

“Valps, your own stubbornness and your unwillingness to reconsider our place in this galaxy is what causes you to suffer so,” said Hauster ( _Kelivash!_ ) smoothly as he delicately dabbed at the encrusted blood caking the rim of the manacle securing Valps’ left wrist. “Your Legion brought this upon themselves, brother – your erstwhile ‘allies’ are merely trying to reeducate you as to the true nature of this universe, and to prepare you to accept a new future – a future we can help bring about _together_ if you are willing to cast aside all those things that weaken and diminish you –”

“You mean our oaths to the Emperor?” asked Valps in spite of himself. “And our allegiance to Corax? You think they _weaken_ us? That they make us powerless and ineffective? You betray yourself, Kelivash…only a piece of Nostraman hive-trash would view the notion of fealty in such a way – ”

“But they _have_ , haven’t they?” Hauster/Kelivash interrupted as he stooped slightly to wash the soiled insides of Valps’ thighs. “Consider where you are now; reflect upon what has been done to you and your men – _think_ , Valps: _why_ are you here? Why are you imprisoned against your will and tortured with impunity? Why did the Raven Guard Legion fail at Isstvan? Why does your primarch grovel at the feet of the Night Haunter? It is because of your _oaths_ , because of your _allegiances_ , because your fealty is owed to the _wrong side_.” The disguised Librarian discarded the used cloth and retrieved a comb from a table laden with bathing supplies. Reaching up he began to slowly brush Valps’ tangled shoulder-length black hair, carefully combing stray strands back from the exposed tissue of the legionary’s raw skinless face as he spoke on with a stolen voice. 

“You must know this deep in your hearts: what you deem to be your greatest _strength_ is in reality your greatest _weakness_. Your Legion is virtually _extinct_ because of the oaths you swore, Valps. How then can the Night Lords view your continued loyalty as anything other than an _infection_ that needs to be excised in order for you to become strong again? Did you ever imagine you’d suffer such degradations when you knelt before the Ravenlord and pledged yourself to the Emperor’s Crusade? Or did you just assume you would die valiantly in glorious battle? Come now, you’ve had ample time to muse on all of this – tell me if I’ve gotten it all wrong, that I really am just a piece of Nostraman hive-trash who just doesn’t understand these sorts of things. Tell me, Valps – no, wait! Pretend for a moment that I really _am_ acting-sergeant Sebastian Hauster, weary of the torment and shame, and that I have come to you with a very simple question: _why should I remain loyal?_ ”

As he stared at the Night Lord psyker who now wore Sebastian Hauster’s face and spoke poisoned words with Sebastian Hauster’s voice Valps could almost admire the traitor’s artful reconfiguration of that ever-repeated question which had been asked of him by his captors over and over until he had been brought to the very brink of madness. What had started as a simple ‘ _are you still loyal?_ ’ had evolved into ‘ _why should you remain loyal_?’ Now he was being asked to _justify_ his loyalty and in so doing justify the pain and abuse he willingly endured because of it. Valps closed his eye and lowered his head; suddenly he was tired, tired beyond reckoning, tired in ways he never could’ve conceived were possible. An errant thought flashed across his exhausted mind, and he could not tell if it was his own or if Kelivash had planted it: _did Sevatar ask Rushal this question?_

But now his time had come. He was no longer in a cell; another vision now subsumed his senses. In his mind’s eye Valps stood at the unavoidable junction, at the fateful choosing of the ways: on his left a vast galaxy-spanning abyss opened up, filled with the Darkness Inescapable, its soothing shadowed depths promising a release from the pain and the burden of his pointless worthless loyalty; on his right a long twisting path led away into a crimson haze, a narrow path bristling with jagged bloodstained blades that would cut him and bleed him until there was nothing left of him to cut or bleed. Kelivash stood on his left and Hauster waited at his right. Kelivash was hale and strong and filled with conviction and purpose; he offered Valps a new future and a promise of strength and dignity regained. In contrast, Hauster was a ruined husk of man, ravaged ( _cut_ ) and broken ( _bled_ ) by his refusal of that future and the sacrifices it entailed. He could offer Valps nothing but a miserable unremembered death devoid of all honor and meaning. This was the choice; the altered question was a gateway to it – now was the appointed hour; now was the moment of truth.

+ _Why should you remain loyal?_ +

Valps looked between Kelivash and Hauster, between the victorious Night Lord and the defeated Raven Guard legionary. He thought of the visions the Librarian had shown him. He recalled the Dropsite Massacre and the hundreds of dead Nineteenth Legion Astartes piled high in shattered heaps about the Urgall Depression, the hapless victims of betrayal and fratricide. He thought of Corvus Corax, defeated by Angron and imprisoned by the Night Haunter, his failures exacerbated each time a Night Lord cut Valps, cut his men. The inevitable abyss yawned invitingly. Kelivash extended an imploring hand, the expression on his face one of rare brotherly concern. For a fleeting second he looked almost human.

+It doesn’t need to end this way, brother. The future is ours to shape and a worthy death in battle can still be yours. Turn from the False Light; reject this needless suffering. Rid yourself of all those ideals and ties that weaken you and bind you. Join us. Set aside your great burden and become one with the Dark. Better to embrace it freely then be devoured by it unwillingly. Come, Valps. Follow me.+

And Kyrik Valps found he _wanted_ to follow; he _wanted_ to step into the dark and be hidden from the pain and the humiliation forever. He was weary, so very weary. So also were his men – even those like Ullrav and Anrett who tried so hard to hide it. Even Hauster was weary… _Hauster_ …

Tearing his gaze away from the Night Lord’s proffered hand Valps looked rightwards at his acting sergeant. Sebastian Hauster stood slightly to the side at the foot of the bladed path as if waiting for Valps to take point and lead him unerringly into unendurable torments which would know no end except in a degrading death. He said nothing, of course; his eyes and tongue were gone and his gaunt body was a bloody riot of bruises and whip-wounds. Still, he stood…and endured.

 _I cannot abandon him,_ Valps thought in dull horror. _He’s waiting for me to come back; waiting for me to return and relieve him. They’re all waiting: Lychor, Lowen, Borrik, Morkaan, Feljak, Ullrav, Anrett, Rhayes, Kletcher…I have to go back. They are my men and I am their sergeant. I am Brother-Sergeant Kyrik Valps of the 17 th Company Raven Guard…and I am…I am…_

“…I am still loyal.” The words of the eternal reply left Valps’ lips before he opened his eye (when had he closed it?) to the cold reality of the cell and looked upon Kelivash (who had shed his disguise) for what felt like the final time. A strange sort of peace settled upon his shoulders, a peace that existed independently of his physical constraints and his mental weariness. He had made his choice: he would walk the path of pain with his battle-brothers at his side and together they would show their traitor-brethren what it meant to be truly loyal, what it meant to be Nineteenth Legion.

“I have made my choice, Kelivash,” despite the exhaustion evident in his voice Valps had never felt stronger or more certain about anything in his entire eventful life. A great pressure had been lifted from his hearts. His head was clearer; his breath came easier. Somehow, impossibly, he felt _free_. “I reject the Dark. I deny your future. So either kill me or return me to my men – we are done here.”

Kelivash’s cruel face was unreadable. With contempt flashing in his remaining eye Valps raised his chin defiantly, daring the Night Lord to tear out his throat. Before the Librarian could respond or take further action the cell door slid back and Jago Sevatar entered with Alastor Rushal shadowing his heels. The sight of the traitor Raven Guard captain stirred nothing in Valps’ hearts now, not even rage. Rushal was a shade, a wraith, a shadowy nobody who had once been the 89th Company’s commander. Now he was Sevatar’s lapdog. The captain had turned his back on his primarch and spat on his oaths while Valps and his line-Astartes remained true. Valps could only regard the fallen raven as nothing more then another traitor to whom a reckoning was due.

“New orders, Kelivash,” Sevatar said without preamble. “The sergeant is to be returned to his men. All interrogation is to cease; adding a second raven to our ranks is no longer a priority. It is the will of the primarch.”

Kelivash turned his back on Valps and he never saw the Librarian’s face again except in nightmares. “So be it,” the psyker ground out between clenched fangs before stalking stiffly from the cell. At a signal from Sevatar two other Night Lords entered and unshackled the Raven Guard from the bloodstained torture-frame. Before Valps could fight them Sevatar’s armored fist connected with his stomach and the Space Marine doubled over, retching as his arms were gripped and he was forced onto his knees. Sevatar seized a fistful of his hair and jerked his head up so their eyes could meet. Unlike most Night Lords who broadcasted their emotions and intentions openly, the scarred features of the Eighth Legion’s First Captain remained dispassionate and remote.

“Do you think you have scored a victory, little raven?” Sevatar asked with a deadly softness. “Do you presume that anything has changed or that you’ve been gifted a reprieve? Curze has given his orders regarding your fate and the fate of your men and your primarch. Your sufferings have only just begun, sergeant. The Imperium will burn and all trace of your vanquished Legion will be purged from the annuls of human history. The False Emperor and His mortal Terran lickspittle will be cast down and we of the Legiones Astartes will rule the galaxy as is our right. Remember, Valps: we offered you a choice of futures; we gave you the chance to be apart of a new galactic order. Unlike Rushal, you have decided instead to cleave to hypocritical ideals and false delusions. So be it. All choices have their consequences. When the end comes for you it will be as a direct result of your decisions. Now tell me: are you still loyal?”

“I am still loyal.” Valps answered without hesitation, knowing this was the last time he would be asked the eternal question and that the doors to a future where he served alongside his battle-brothers’ murderers were being shut forever. It was nothing but a relief. He had made his choice, freely and of his own accord. It didn’t matter what happened to him now; Rushal would die alone in his defection among Astartes who would never fully accept him. The Raven Guard legionary grinned vindictively up at the Prince of Crows. “So be it.”

“Take him back to the others,” Sevatar ordered coldly, turning away. “And inform Skalx and his mob the beatings are to stop. The sons of the Ravenlord have made their choice and they shall drain the cup of consequence down to its last bitter dregs.”

 _The exact same can be said of the sons of Curze,_ Valps thought idly as the Night Lords hauled him to his feet and half-marched, half-dragged him from the cell. Still, the peace remained, lightly covering his body like a pair of sheltering wings. The feeling was intoxicating. He felt light enough to float. The rational part of him understood that Sevatar was correct and that nothing had truly changed, but deep in his core where the flames of hope still flickered Valps stood atop his inner redoubt and ecstatically howled his triumph at reality’s burning skies.

_I am loyal! I am loyal! The galaxy might burn but I am still loyal!_

The depraved detritus of Nostramo would never understand: there was victory and there was death and sometimes the former could not be won without the latter. Valps smiled. He _had_ scored a victory: he had chosen to stay true to his oaths; he had elected not to abandon his men as Rushal had. _I am free; I am the freest man aboard this accursed ship. I have made my choice. I am still loyal…_

“Stop grinning, you faceless piece of carrion,” snarled one of the guards, twisting his right arm until it was on the brink of popping out of his shoulder-socket. Valps laughed aloud, heedless of the pain. “Victory or death, traitor-scum! I am still loyal! May the Emperor, beloved by all, live forever just to spite you! Corax knows where you sleep! You’ll all _die_ for this! The Raven Guard will be avenged nineteenfold!”

The second guard cursed and struck him across the back of the head. Interesting white lights danced across Valps’ already-impaired vision. He laughed harder. “Your primarch will be put down like a mad dog! Russ will hunt you across the stars and _eat_ you! Sanguinius will wash his wings in your blood! Guilliman will chain you to a chair and lecture you concerning proper hygiene habits! Ave Imperator! I am still loyal!”

“Shut up before I gut you right here and now!” Two more blows to the stomach put an end to the Raven Guard’s mad tirade. Still, his raw ravaged face wore a vindictive grin for the rest of the journey. Kyrik Valps was now a man at peace. He walked the bladed path of pain and duty of his own free will. He was no oath-breaker like Rushal; he was still loyal and that was all that would ever matter. Soon Corax would escape and then it would the Night Lords who thrashed and bled and faced the consequences of their treasonous actions. It was going to be glorious. Valps sighed and closed his eye again, allowing himself to be dragged on without resistance. He was still weary; very weary, yes…but still very loyal.

**XVII.**

Glannas Morkaan was dying. Sebastian Hauster had been so involved with fighting Skalx that he’d been unable to come to anyone else’s aid during the Night Lords’ latest in-cell assault. None of his battle-brothers faulted him for this; it was all a single Raven Guard legionary could do to keep himself from being beaten insensible during a conflict so unequal and one-sided that it was out of necessity that each man fought only for himself. Still, remorse pierced Hauster’s hearts like a dagger as a gabbling Lychor helped him regain his feet and he looked over the damage the sons of Curze had wrought.

Rhayes was curled up against the far wall in a fetal position, covered in blood, his maimed hands drawn up to his chest. An equally bloodied Ullrav was standing over him, shaking with rage and roaring accusations at the top of his voice while Anrett struggled to restrain him from attacking Rhayes outright.

“You didn’t even _try_ to fight!” Ullrav screamed, his anger tainted by frustrated grief. “You coward! You _traitor!_ You just let them beat Morkaan without even attempting to defend him! Let _go_ of me, Jakob! I’m going to crush this wretch’s worthless skull!”

“Brother Frollac Ullrav, _stand down!_ _Now!_ ” Hauster felt as if his lungs were filling with burning promethium with each ragged breath he took. Speaking aloud made his throat feel like it was being ripped open by rusted meat hooks. But he was still acting sergeant and he would not allow the Night Lords any further satisfaction by permitting discipline to break down among Valps’ men. To his relief Ullrav obeyed and allowed the anxious Anrett to guide him away, leaving Rhayes to his misery. Leaning on Lychor’s shoulder for support Hauster made his way to the corner Morkaan and Feljak had made their own. Brother Lowen was kneeling by the two motionless Space Marines, tears running silently down his bruise-blackened face. He looked up as Hauster approached and the aguish in his dark eyes was so profound that Hauster almost looked away.

“The fault is mine, sir,” Lowen rumbled sorrowfully. “I could’ve stopped them if I had just fought harder.”

“No, brother,” Hauster shook his head as he painfully knelt down beside Morkaan’s blood-drenched head. “The Night Lords did this to him; the fault is theirs and theirs alone. Do not blame yourself, Clain.” Lowen said nothing and Hauster knew he would carry the blame deep within him until his dying day. Lychor began making a low keening noise in the back of his throat as he stared wide-eyed down at the dying Astartes; then he balled his hand into a fist and struck himself forcefully in the lower jaw. Hauster didn’t bother with trying to stop him; rational arguments would not work; neither would restraint. “Go stand watch by the bulkhead, Lychor,” he commanded tiredly instead. Lychor nodded, saluted and limped away, still obedient and loyal despite everything.

“Brother Morkaan? Glannas?” Hauster was afraid to touch much less lift the quadriplegic Raven Guard into a sitting position. As was his custom Morkaan had positioned the greater bulk of his body over Feljak’s head, neck and chest during the Night Lords’ assault, using the stumps of his knees and forearms to brace himself above the comatose Astartes veteran so his weight would not harm his charge. Feljak himself sported no fresh injuries and remained oblivious to all that had transpired. Morkaan was still bracing himself, though his eyes were blank and unfocused. A blow from a Night Lord’s spiked gauntlet had staved in the right side of his head. Blood and brain fluids oozed from the cracked skull and his breathing was harsh and shallow.

“We need to lift him before he goes,” said Lowen quietly. Standing he bent down and wrapped his thick arms about Morkaan’s midsection. With a grunt he raised the Raven Guard upright; the legionary offered no resistance. Lowen sank quickly back on his haunches, allowing Morkaan to sag stiffly against him. “I strangled all of them for you, brother,” he whispered brokenly into Morkaan’s ear. Glannas Morkaan spasmed and his jaws jerked apart. For one hopeful moment Hauster thought he might speak, then the Astartes spasmed again and with a final exhalation he went limp in Lowen’s arms.

Hauster bowed his head, feeling as if something vital had been torn out of him; feeling as if he’d failed his departed brother and Sergeant Valps both. Clain Lowen threw back his head and cried out in loud terrible voice: “So passes Glannas Morkaan, hero of the Imperium!

 _“So passes brother Morkaan, hero of the Imperium_!” Hauster roared, putting all of his grief and pain into the ritual proclamation.

 _“So passes brother Morkaan, hero of the Imperium!”_ Ullrav cried savagely as a weeping Anrett signed the words beside him.

Lychor wailed like a bereaved wolf as he tore at his face and hair. Rhayes said nothing. Bereft of his guardian Feljak lay still and uncomprehending of the loss of a brother whose name he would never know. With reverence Lowen laid Morkaan’s body onto the decking alongside the Legion veteran for whom he had sacrificed his life to protect. _“Fly free,”_ he said under his breath as he closed his brother’s empty eyes. Turning he then rested a hand upon Feljak’s pallid brow. “I will protect you now,” he promised; his own grief-dulled eyes met Hauster’s and the acting-sergeant nodded his assent. Before he could issue further orders the lumens suddenly dimmed and the vox-hailers crackled to life again:

_“Back from the doors, carrion-feeders! Back from the doors or we’ll make sure you’ll live to regret it!”_

Ullrav spat out a particularly odious curse. “The bastards have come for the body!” _Already?_ Anrett signed in confusion. _Usually they wait till they’re stinking before retrieving them._

Lowen stood and flexed his still-impressive muscles. “Let them come. I have more Nostraman hive-trash to strangle.”

“Everyone back away,” Hauster ordered and Ullrav, Anrett and Lychor immediately arrayed themselves in loose formation in front of Morkaan and Feljak. After a moment Rhayes joined them, crawling over on his hands and knees, his eyes fixed on the decking. Ullrav aimed a kick at him as he passed but was stopped by a sharp glare from Lowen. Hauster arose, biting back a groan as his broken bones ground together and his battered muscles pulsed with deep-set pain. He wondered if any of them could survive another beating coming so soon on the heels of the last. Perhaps it was a different gang of Night Lords who wanted to take a crack at them, or perhaps Skalx was unsatisfied with his work. Hauster took a deep pained breath and steeled his mind and hearts once more.

_Endure…endure…endure as Corax endures._

“We’re waiting, shit-eaters!” Ullrav called out impatiently. Unable to one-up his friend’s declaration Anrett settled for making a series of incredibly rude hand-gestures. Once again the disrupter-field dissipated and the heavy bulkhead opened. Two helmless Night Lords none of them recognized stood framed in the entryway, grinning their ugly malicious grins. But it was not the sight of two new traitors that drew a collective gasp from the gathered Raven Guard legionaries. Sagging between the Night Lords, his head bowed so low that his long black hair fell in a curtain over his skinless face, was Sergeant Kyrik Valps, whom Hauster had secretly given up for dead; almost against his will hope flamed up anew in the acting-sergeant’s hearts and he took an eager step forwards.

 _“Brother-Sergeant!”_ The cry tore out of him before Hauster was aware that he had even spoken.

“Here’s your precious oh-so-glorious leader,” spat one of the Night Lords. He grasped a fistful of Valps’ hair and jerked his head back so his grotesque features could be clearly seen. “Kelivash grew bored with him, as did many others. Still, he managed to keep us amused for a good while. Perhaps a little respite is in order – we can’t have Corax’s little chicks dying off too soon, now can we?”

Gripping Valps’ unbound arms the two Night Lords thrust him bodily into the cell. Hauster sprang forwards, heedless of the potential danger, and managed to catch the Raven Guard in his arms before he crashed to the decking. Lowen, Lychor, Ullrav and Anrett quickly dashed forward and repositioned themselves between their commander and his tormentors. But their concern was groundless; without another word the two Night Lords stepped backwards into the outside corridor and the bulkhead closed with a whir of automatic locking-mechanisms.

“ _Bastards!_ You’ll pay for this!” Ullrav yelled impotently as the disrupter-field sealed off the door and the lumen strips flared back to their usual searing brightness. Lowen and Anrett knelt beside Hauster, concern and hope intermingling on their careworn faces. Gently Hauster cradled Valps’ head in his hands, careful not to touch the exposed muscle of his flayed face. A fresh plethora of knife-marks scarred his surprisingly clean skin; Hauster knew worse things had been done but it was one small mercy that he still possessed all his limbs.

“Sergeant Valps? Brother? Can you hear us?”

Kyrik Valps stirred and opened his remaining eye. “Hauster?” He blinked and shifted slightly. “Is it really you, Hauster?”

“ _Yes_ , yes sir. I am here. It is me.” Hauster was too emotionally caught up in the moment to notice the tears streaking his hollow cheeks. “I couldn’t leave you, Hauster,” Valps said, exhaustion and satisfaction lending weight to his words. “I knew you were waiting for me – I couldn’t follow Kelivash into the abyss; couldn’t abandon you like Rushal did…” he broke off coughing and anger flared anew through Hauster; he didn’t have any fresh water to give the brother-sergeant, nor was there a single blanket available to cover him with.

“I…am _still loyal_ …” Valps growled firmly, nodding faintly to himself. “But I am so weary, Hauster. The things that Librarian showed me…the visions…all the carnage and death…” He closed his eye and shuddered. “I could no nothing…except choose the bladed path of my own volition. They will cut us and bleed us until there is nothing left of us to cut or bleed…but that will not matter because…because…”

“Because we will _endure_ ,” Hauster finished softly, blinking away his tears. Valps smiled and opened his eye again. “Yes…we will endure. Soon Corax will come; the Deliverer will return to us…we must be ready for him, Hauster. We must prepare ourselves. But I am weary. I must rest for a while. Sevatar told me that Curze has decided our fates; whatever happens we must endure, for Corax’s sake. _Promise_ me you will endure, Hauster.”

“You have my oath on that, sir,” said Hauster, bowing his head. “We will endure! I swear it!”

“We will endure!” the others cried in unison, their grief at Morkaan’s loss assuaged by their sergeant’s unexpected return. “Victory or death!”

“But for how _long_ , brothers?” Rhayes asked bitterly from the corner where he crouched, mouthing his mutilated fingers, his dull dark eyes utterly devoid of hope or resolve. “How _long_ must we endure?”

“For as long as we live!” retorted Lowen as he stood and saluted Sergeant Valps.

 _After the death of the last star!_ Anrett signed dramatically.

“Until every single Night Lord traitor has been purged from this galaxy!” Ullrav spat, baring his broken teeth and casting a murderous glance at the sealed bulkhead.

“Good…that is good…” murmured Valps weakly. “Hauster, can you keep an eye on the men for a little while longer? I need to sleep.”

“Yes, sir; it would be an honor. Rest, please. We will not let another Night Lord touch you again.”

Valps sighed and his pain-filled eye flickered shut. _“Thank you.”_

The _Nightfall_ cruised onward, baring her cargo of tortured primarchs and their lost sons through the turbulence of the warp without complaint or remorse. Konrad Curze lay sprawled on the floor of his darkened sanctum, convulsing and screaming as a seemingly-endless train of nightmarish visions paraded through his deranged mind, his nails tearing plasteel slivers from the decking in his agony. In his secure isolation-cell Corvus Corax drifted in and out of a hallucinatory sleep as the sibilant otherworldly whispers grew more numerous and insistent even while Stradon’s mangled remains rotted away upon the floor at his feet. Jago Sevatar restlessly prowled the ship’s shadowed corridors with Alastor Rushal ever-dogging his steps, unable to lay his concerns to rest until the Ravenlord had been cast away upon some savage death-world and the Thramas Crusade began in earnest.

And acting-sergeant Sebastian Hauster settled himself against the wall of an unfurnished communal holding-cell with his surviving Raven Guard brethren close about him, his still-living, still-loyal commander cradled close to his chest, peacefully resting at last. Would they endure? _Could_ they endure? They would: an oath was an oath – a promise was a promise, it was as simple as that. Hauster finally closed his own eyes and for the first time in a long time he gave no thought to the grim dark future rushing forwards to meet them all with gaping blood-drenched jaws.

Whatever trails were to come, whatever Curze had planned for them, the Raven Guard legionaries would endure: for their primarch, for the Imperium, for the Emperor and all their fallen battle-brothers they would endure until death was granted or victory won. That was the way of the Nineteenth Legion; that was the teaching of the Ravenlord. Loyalty was its own reward. For the sons of Deliverance, it was more then enough. 


	13. XIII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! Here's a nice fat 13th chapter to make up for my (second) hiatus. I've also gone over the previous chapters with a fine-toothed comb and made some needed minor corrections and additions. 
> 
> This chapter marks the beginning of the second part of the story. Enjoy.

**Warp Exit / Final Offers / Embrace Me II**

**XVIII**

Brother-Sergeant Kyrik Valps knew the reprieve the Night Lords had given him and his men would not last – could not last – and so the days (or weeks?) of ‘peace’ following his return were spent as profitably as the weary (yet loyal) Raven Guard sergeant could devise. No longer did Sebastian Hauster preform his warm-up exercises and hand-to-hand disciplines alone: at Valps’ order all now took part, even Rhayes, though he had become completely morose and silent, closing himself off mentally and emotionally from his battle-brothers. Feljak’s condition remained unchanged; and, as Anrett had anticipated, the body of Glannas Morkaan was not taken from the cell until the stench of his rotting flesh suffused the air and clung bitterly in the nostrils of the surviving Space Marines. Still, Skalx and his men did not return; there were no further beatings, nor was Valps taken from the cell again. Their rations of nutrient-paste and fresh water increased, though hunger’s jaws continued to chew unabated at their bellies. Their abused bodies steadily mended as the Emperor’s gene-wrought gifts worked ceaselessly to restore their strength and vigor. Under Valps’ direction they sparred with one another and exercised in pairs, keeping their muscles and minds focused and directed on those things they did have control over, rather then brooding unnecessarily upon the many woes and humiliations they had suffered.

And when they finished their meals – scooping the tasteless paste out of buckets with their bare hands and licking their fingers clean – Valps, Hauster, Lowen, Ullrav, and Anrett would sit close together in a loose circle in the middle of the cell, speaking openly of the battle-brothers they had lost during the Dropsite Massacre and recalling the many deeds of prowess and valor they had accomplished over the course of the Great Crusade. They did not speak of their own victories; the uncounted dead on Isstvan needed to be remembered in some manner and since each of them was the sole survivor of the squads they had served in they all told stories of the legionaries they had known personally and whose loss cut the keenest. At other times they recounted the legendary exploits of the Ninetieth Legion’s heroes and champions, even going as far as to regal one another with tales of the mighty deeds preformed by Corvus Corax himself, their primarch in whom they still looked to for deliverance.

In a way the Raven Guard were not merely paying tribute to the memory of fallen warriors – they were lamenting the end of an era, mourning the downfall of the Emperor’s dream and the collapse of His unifying Crusade. The galaxy had changed, irreversibly and forever, and all they had once believed in and fought for was now in peril of extinction, threatened by the Master of Mankind’s own elect Warmaster, Horus Lupercal, once the exalted primarch, now the blackest of traitors. Before the loyalist legionaries could set their faces against this new grim reality the glories of the old one – the one they had helped forge – had to be remembered and laid to rest with the dignity it deserved. So they spoke of the Nineteenth’s former victories without shame or reluctance, uncaring that their traitor brethren were listening in on them. Their failure at Isstvan had been rubbed in their faces by the Night Lords for so long it was borderline cathartic to recall and revel in the successes of past campaigns with some sense of pride and satisfaction.

It was then that Feljak’s comatose state was lamented the most, for locked away in the centuries-old Terran-born veteran’s mind was a past and a history inaccessible to any of them, a life of service that spanned the very genesis of the Great Crusade to the final battle with the World Eaters on Isstvan. The things he must have witnessed – the stories he could have told! Morkaan hadn’t merely sacrificed himself to keep Feljak alive, he had died so that a piece of that now-lost era might yet be preserved in some form. It was why neither Valps nor Hauster could bring themselves to snap the motionless Astartes’ neck and spare themselves the agony of potentially loosing him to the twisted ministrations of the Eighth Legion’s Apothecaries, to skilled Night Lords such as Haffkar who would forcibly revive the loyal veteran only to inflict further pain and damage upon him. Still, the legionaries continued in their acts of remembrance, determined that neither their past nor their hope would wither and die as the traitors so fervently wished.

“We have _nothing_ to be ashamed of, brothers,” Valps said with a firm solemnity as a grinning Ullrav finished recounting a victory his squad had snatched from the overconfident grasp of the conniving Elder. “The sons of Curze seek to belittle and disgrace our Legion and our primarch because they themselves cannot truly take pride in their own accomplishments. Deep in their hearts they cannot hide from what they are: murderers, torturers, sadists and now traitors. That is the real reason they cut us and revile us – we possess something they will never have: true loyalty and devotion to an ideal more grand and glorious then anything the human race has ever been able to conceive, much less make a reality. Corax believed in the Emperor’s dream; he believed Unity was worth fighting and dying for. We have been betrayed, yes, and we have been defeated and shattered as a Legion, yes – but as long as we endure that bright dream lives on within each of us; for are we not the Emperor’s own instruments of deliverance and justice? The gene-sons of His own faithful son who remains loyal even in captivity? We must –”

At that moment Hektor Lychor – who was unable to contribute meaningfully to the palaver of reminiscence and recollection – gave a strangled cry of anguish and buried his still-bloodied face in his trembling hands. Five seconds later the entirety of the city-sized _Nightfall_ convulsed as she tore herself free of the clutches of the immaterium, her vast superstructure straining with the effort and the violence it took to reemerge back into realspace. The overly bright lumen strips flickered uncertainly and a brief stab of nausea twisted through the guts of each Space Marine. A mad laugh escaped Rhayes and he gnashed his teeth as he clawed mindlessly at the decking with his mutilated fingers. The other captive Raven Guard legionaries grimaced and looked apprehensively towards the shielded bulkhead. None of them had truly believed the reprieve they all enjoyed would be permanent. Each knew from bitter fist-hand experience the Night Lords were capable of anything and that at any moment they might return and continue ‘illuminating’ their loyalist gene-brethren.

“Are we still loyal?” Valps asked calmly, his voice steady and unwavering. “We are still loyal!” came the defiant time-proven response. Hauster opened his mouth – _Will you endure?_ he’d been about to shout – when suddenly the vox-broadcasters crackled to life and the harsh malicious voice of Konrad Curze filled the cell as he addressed the voidships of his entire Legion over the _Nightfall’s_ mass-relay vox-network:

_“Warriors of the glorious Eighth! My damned sons of the Night! The Thramas Crusade is upon us! Together we shall stretch out our claws and rip asunder the chattel-worlds of the False Emperor’s fraudulent empire! We shall confound the haughty Dark Angels of the vaulted First Legion and impress upon the Lion the limits of his might and prowess. Battle and butchery await – truth and torment are ours to give and theirs to receive. Let their screams shred the stars; let their blood drown the oceans! Death! Death to the Imperium! Death to all who oppose us! We are Fear! We are Darkness! We are the Night Lords! Ave Dominus Nox!”_

In the wake of the primarch’s proclamation silence descended once more and the warriors of Deliverance looked at one another in disbelief. _Is Curze truly insane?_ signed Anrett with genuine perplexion. _He thinks he can defeat the First Legion? He believes he can take on Lion El’Jonson?_

“He doesn’t necessarily need to defeat the Dark Angels in order to archive his goals,” replied Lowen grimly. “He’ll likely do what we would have done in his place had our positions been reversed: he’ll keep the First occupied with feints, with raids and hit-and-run tactics. The Night Lords’ fleet will be broken up so various companies can conduct multiple terror-campaigns at strategic locations rich in resources and manpower. Open warfare is something the Eighth has never preferred and they’ll seek to avoid it for as long as they can. It’s very possible the Lion knows nothing of what has transpired in the Isstvan System and remains ignorant of Horus’ – and subsequently Curze’s – treachery. The Night Haunter will exploit his brother’s ignorance to his advantage, just as the supposedly loyal primarchs exploited Corax, Ferrus Manus and Vulkan…” the big Astartes trailed off, fresh pain blooming in his eyes as he recalled the wonton butchery that had resulted from their brother-Legions’ collective betrayal.

“If the First is still loyal then Curze’s sole goal will be to keep the Dark Angels from reaching Terra ahead of Horus and his cohorts,” Hauster continued quietly. “And Horus _will_ march against the Throneworld – he must; for that is where the Emperor abides and the Imperium’s power stems, both literally and symbolically. The Warmaster must take Terra for his victory to be legitimate in the eyes of his followers. Rogal Dorn and his Imperial Fists cannot withstand the massed might of eight treasonous Legions indefinitely. Aid must come from beyond the Sol System: the Space Wolves, the Ultramarines, the White Scars, the Blood Angels, the Dark Angels, the Thousand Sons…the loyalty of some of those Legions is beyond reproach. Terra will look to them for deliverance and Horus will sow as much confusion as destruction as he can to ensure they will not hinder his plans. The Warmaster must believe the Lion to be a legitimate threat so the Night Lords have been ordered to waylay and harass his Legion. I do not think Curze will manage to slay his knightly brother, but he doesn’t have to – all he has to do is isolate and forestall another loyal element from coming to the Emperor’s defense…”

Hauster, too, trailed off as the bitter memories of their failure at Isstvan swept through his mind. The Nineteenth Legion's inability to play any further meaningful part in the expanding civil-war was a bitter drought to swallow. Betrayed and shattered beyond repair the sons of Corax chafed against their impotence – unable to deliver themselves they could entertain no theoretical in which they could come to the deliverance of fellow allies; only the hope that their primarch might yet free himself and liberate them in turn kept the legionaries’ flickering moral alive.

“Curze _is_ insane,” Ullrav stood and cast his hate-filled eyes along the walls, baring his teeth at the hidden pict-recorders and vid-capturers constantly monitoring them. “And the Lion will not suffer him to live once his treachery is made known. The innocent blood the Eighth intends to spill in the Thramas sector will be paid for tenfold in Nostraman lives – the Dark Angels will ensure it. How does it feel to have a crazed madman as your commander? What pride can you muster as the gene-spawn of a cackling, maniacal – ”

“ _Enough_ , brother Ullrav,” Valps’ quiet order was enough to elicit instant obedience from the younger aggravated Astartes; since their reunion with their sergeant order had been restored among the captive Space Marines and not even Rhayes gainsaid Valps’ will. Valps stood and stretched, luxuriating in the beautiful freedom that came with such a simple action. His broken kneecaps had mended and now he could move about unaided. The rest stood along with him, ready to begin another round of routine exercises. Anrett stepped in front of the still-glowering Ullrav. _Corax will come_ , he signed, meeting his friend’s smoldering gaze. _And when he does we will avenge ourselves and our fallen brothers together – as a Legion_. Ullrav’s jaws clenched but he nodded, briefly placing his hands on Anrett’s shoulders. Rhayes emitted a sound that might have been a snort or a scoff, causing Lowen to glare at him. Then the cell’s internal vox-emitters whined and hissed, filling the sour air with the raspy sounds of a Night Lord’s obscene laughter. It was Skalx. The fresh whip-scars scoring Hauster’s back prickled and the former acting-sergeant pushed away the memories of the brutal whippings he had received at the traitor Space Marine’s hands.

 _“The Ravenlord isn’t coming, little carrion-feeders,”_ Skalx’s slick voice was laced with malicious unbridled glee. _“Do you know how the Techmarine Stradon Binalt died, sergeant Valps? He spent his last hours bleeding and screaming like a grox in a slaughtering pen right at Corax’s feet, weeping and beseeching his primarch to save him while Curze violated every bare inch of his flesh. What could Corax do for him? Nothing! What can he do for you? Nothing! Far better to be a victorious son of the Night Haunter then a defeated scion of the Carrion Fowl. But your time will soon come, little ravens; we have plenty in store for you and your primarch – ”_

“Ignore him!” At Valps’ sharp command the Raven Guard legionaries instinctively came to and faced their commanding officer, giving him their undivided attention and shutting out the gloating, despair-inducing words of the loathsome Skalx.

“Who are you?!” Valps cried as he strode back and forth before them, his shoulders back, his head held high, his flayed face serving as a grotesque reminder of the price he had paid for his loyalty.

 _"We are Raven Guard, the sons of the Deliverer!”_ They roared aloud in unison.

“And who do your serve?!” Valps was relentless in his ceaseless vigilance over his warrior’s fealty, which was just what the imprisoned Space Marines needed of him.

 _“We serve the Emperor! We fight for the Imperium of Man! We are loyal to the primarch Corvus Corax, the faithful nineteenth son!”_ Not even Rhayes kept silent. Lychor grinned madly and nodded his head vigorously while Anrett enthusiastically signed the expected responses. As the Astartes of the shattered Nineteenth Legion reaffirmed their identity and their allegiance Hauster felt pride swell in his hearts once more. Hope – irrational, unfounded and eternally despised by their captors – welled unbidden in his chest. Only death would keep Corax from returning to them; as long as they still breathed they would serve…

 _“Your loyalty is nothing!”_ Skalx snarled scornfully and Hauster could almost envision the spittle spraying from his thin slash of a mouth as he shouted into the vox-caster. _“Your fealty is worthless! You’ll all die broken and despairing, that’s a promise!”_

The loyalist survivors of Isstvan V paid him no more heed and went about their physical regimens in resolute silence. Now that the Eighth Legion’s fleet had exited the warp the sons of Curze would soon focus on the grim business of terror and bloodshed; if there was a chance for Corax to escape, now was the time. Until then, Valps would ensure their readiness and their faithfulness. As he went through the familiar movements with his body, Hauster’s mind went racing down pathways of possibilities that led to freedom and victory, refusing to give credence to Skalx’s cryptic hints concerning their fate. The Night Lords had plans for them but he would not dwell on them. Corax would come. Hauster had faith he would come, even if faith had no more place in this world than hope did. The Ravenlord would return – if they stayed loyal; if they just _endured_ …

**XIX**

To Corvus Corax’s time-confused mind it seemed that less then a day had elapsed since the _Nightfall_ had reemerged back into realspace and he had made his grim oath of moment to Stradon’s severed head to kill his brother when Curze came for him once more. The Ravenlord’s enhanced physiology could do nothing for his dislocated shoulder, which needed to be re-set with the aid of a Space Marine apothecary; all his other injuries had fully mended, but his thirst and hunger had grown to such an extent that he was beginning to feel lightheaded from the lack of nourishment – and still for all his mighty exertions the accursed chains continued to confound him. Fresh blood had flowed anew down his arms from the aggravated spiked manacles and Corax had been licking at the crimson streams with a dust-dry tongue, desperate for fluids, when the Night Haunter entered the isolation cell without warning and the captive primarch had known instantly that his fate had been decided upon.

The traitor-primarch of the Eighth Legion was fully armored as he always was whenever he visited Corax, but now the artificer battle-plate was clean and free of the dried blood and gore that had stained it since Isstvan and it gleamed with a near-dazzling brilliance, the freshly-lacquered overlapping segments painted a bright midnight-blue and the leering bat-winged skull insignia adorning the breastplate polished to a high sheen and resplendent with menace. The Night Haunter looked like he was about to step out upon a parade-ground to participate in a grand triumph being held to commemorate a newly-conquered world brought into compliance. No hollow-eyed skulls or flayed skins adorned his brother’s spiked pauldrons and even the customary stench that seemed to follow him everywhere he walked was notably absent. But these details were minor trifles and Corax had taken them in as an afterthought when faced with the central change, the one that told him that things were about to take a turn for the worst.

Konrad Curze was wearing his helmet. The gaunt consumptive-pale face that had mocked and delighted in the Ravenlord’s powerlessness and pain was now obscured behind a bone-white face-plate fashioned in the likeness of a fanged skull with two stylized bat wings spread out on either side of the reinforced crest. The helm’s eye-lenzes glowed a malevolent crimson as they focused on him and Corax knew without needing visual confirmation that Curze was smiling. The Ravenlord had never seen the Night Lords’ primarch helmed until this moment and the sight sent a thrill of dread shivering through him.

“Rejoice, brother!” Curze’s savage voice, now amplified and boosted considerably by his helm’s internal vox-hailers, stabbed into the primarch’s ears with near-physical force. “A new crusade commences! A new era dawns for the Imperial denizens of the Thramas system! The Night Lords have come for them and we bear new truths and new enlightenments to bedazzle them anew! Rejoice, o Lord of Ravens, for the Thramas Crusade is at hand! Blood will spray across the stars and screams will shatter the firmament! Worlds will burn and cities will perish – just not for the Emperor’s own self-serving ends. Ah, Corax, what a thrill it is to finally be free! Soon I shall wear the pelt of a Lion upon my shoulders and dance upon the broken wings of the First Legion! The work begun at Isstvan will continue until all the loyalist Legions have been eradicated and dear old Dorn stands alone as the last bastion of Terra's defense. What times, brother! What times indeed!”

Curze spread his arms and turned in place so Corax could admire him from all angles in an uncharacteristically theatrical display of showmanship he had likely picked up during his time spent with Fulgrim. He looked every inch the Dark King of Nostramo; an Old Night-birthed terror-god given physical proportions and purpose. Confidence radiated from each proclamation and for the first time since Corax had known him the Night Haunter seemed genuinely happy. Completing a second turn he faced Corax once more and rested a gleaming gauntlet upon the chained primarch’s head; the vox-volume lowered a fraction as Curze seemed to whisper his next words.

“Join me, Corax. Let our claws flash together as we usher in a new galactic era. It is pointless to continue to adhere to the old truths and the past ideals. Father’s Imperium is doomed – it was doomed upon its very conception. You must believe this by now. Admit you are on the wrong side of history and lend your strength to mine. The shadows are vast enough to accommodate us both. There is so much we could do together, you and I. I do not patronize; I make this offer in all sincerity: join our cause and revel in the brief joy of victory once again. Please, brother. You’ve had ample time to consider the situation; nothing is ever going to be the same again, not for any of us. The Emperor is a liar and a fraud and a poor excuse for a father. We deserved better – all of us primarchs deserved better. Come – I will not even demand you swear allegiance to the Warmaster, only that you turn from the False Light and its fraudulent truths. The Darkness awaits; it has always been waiting.”

The Ravenlord closed his eyes and lowered his head, resting his chin upon his chest. This was it, then. Curze had run out of time and Corax had become a real liability to his upcoming terror-campaigns. Death stood before him in midnight-clad and awaited his final answer. His mouth was so dry; he vaguely wished someone had given him some water before the end. The primarch of the Raven Guard had been born into captivity and he now was to die a captive. The irony was not lost on him. Perhaps it was what he deserved after the monumental failure on Isstvan, a failure that had possibly assured Horus his victory. Corax licked his chapped lips with an ashen tongue. He opened his eyes. Everything was so silent, so still, save for the beatings of his hearts. He raised his head met his brother’s expectant red-lit gaze.

“Curze, I once knew and accepted you as my brother, despite despising your methods and the ideology your Legion espouses. If I had one true fear it was that I might end up becoming like you. Yet we are both sons of the Emperor, both the offspring of His craftsmanship and His manifest purpose. But you have forgotten who you are – and you have also forgotten what you have done. Look about the floor, Curze; consider the head which lies at our feet between us. You tortured one of my sons to death before my eyes and mocked me for being unable to save him. Even if I harbored the same grievances against Father as you do, even if I were as close in Horus’ affections as Sanguinius, even then I would not join with you. If fate is fixed, as you so ardently claim, then I cannot escape being what I am any more then you can. I am the Deliverer, as I have said. I am a son of the Emperor’s Light and in that light I will remain, even if it is a fallible imperfect light doomed to flicker and die and be consumed by the darkness….”

Corax took a pained breath and leaned towards the Night Haunter as close as the chains would allow. He could just faintly descry his own careworn features in Curze’s reflective face-plate. He barely recognized himself. He licked his lips again. “Now, let me make a counteroffer, brother. I do not patronize; I say this in all sincerity: join _me_ , Curze. Call off your crusade. Spare countless innocent lives. Release me and take the Eighth back to Terra, not for conquest, but to answer to the High Lords for your methods of war. Return not as a renegade but as an ally bringing succor. Overturn everyone’s beliefs and expectations regarding you and your Legion. Transcend your nature and spit in the face of your foreseen destiny. Show Father you are just as loyal as Dorn or Sanguinius or Guilliman. Redeem yourself and your legionaries in the eyes of humanity. Stand with me on the parapets of the Imperial Palace and imagine the look of absolute shock that will cross Horus’ face when he finds you holding the Throneworld against him. Become a hero. Become a primarch worthy praise and admiration...”

Corax paused again and favored Curze with a hard stare. “I may not be able to forgive you for what you did on Isstvan and for what you continue to do to my sons – but the Emperor might forgive you. He just might. If everything is meaningless then why not take a stand for Father’s dream, the one we were created to shape into a reality: the dream of a unified human empire, the one we’ve all fought so long and hard to forge. You are the Emperor’s son, Curze, and I do not believe your destiny is fixed and unalterable. Let us return to Terra. Let us kneel together before Father and beg His forgiveness for all our mistakes and failures, for if He is a poor excuse for a father then we are equally poor excuses for sons. What say you, Konrad? Will you not join me? Will you not seek reconciliation?”

There was a long poignant silence that was broken only by the soft humming of the power-feeds in Curze’s battle-plate. The Night Haunter stood transfixed as if he had been turned into a statue. Whatever open emotions played across his face behind his bat-winged helmet were hidden from Corax, but he knew the rebel primarch was considering his words. Resisting the urge to lick at his blood-slick arms again the Ravenlord instead cast his memory back over all that he had done during his participation in the Great Crusade since his coronation as the primarch-progenitor of the Nineteenth Legion. He had ordered actions and had personally performed deeds that had brought him shame and grief but he had always kept his eyes on the ultimate goal: to see humanity unified in the face of a hostile and pitiless galaxy. Now, owing to the Warmaster’s treason, that goal was under attack from the very forces that were supposed to be protecting it. Taking the Night Lords out of Horus’ hands would be a great blow struck in the Imperium’s favor – but it lay with Curze to make the decision. The Night Haunter needed to believe he had options, that he possessed the freedom to make a choice; he needed to see that his future was not written in stone. It was the only form of reconciliation Corax could offer his twisted doppelgänger; the only type–

“I did not foresee us having this particular conversation, Corax,” Curze said suddenly, his vox-grille lending his words a partly mechanical air. Corax said nothing; he had said all that there was to say. Curze continued, his voice as flat and deadened as a servitor’s. “Nor do I foresee any future in which you and I get down on our knees and ask for our Father’s ‘forgiveness’. You and I do not stand watch upon the walls of the Imperial Palace as allies. No mortal utters the praises of the Night Haunter with any warmth or goodwill, nor is my Legion ever celebrated in a manner on par with the Ultramarines or the Blood Angels. It is a false wish-future fabricated within your own mind, Corax. All you genuinely desire is to kill me, so you seek to forestall your own fate by trying to get me focused wholly on mine. But as there is no hope for me, so there is also none for you, brother…”

Curze stepped back, lifting his gauntleted hands, and the lightning-claws flashed into being for what Corax knew would be the last time. Each pristine blade looked as if they were fresh from the forages of Mars, so clean and polished and new, waiting to be baptized in the blood of their first victim. “Hope is dead!” the primarch shrieked in terrified joy, all his former dispassion abandoning him. “After I burned Nostramo I knew there was no going back! You think I would be taking these actions if I had foreseen even _one_ vision of a bright glorious future were the Emperor’s dream becomes a reality?! There is no bright future and no point in believing there will ever be one! You fool! You damned blinded fool…!”

The Night Haunter raised his right gauntlet high above his head. The four fearsome talons glittered promisingly in the lumen’s wan light. Corax could not help but flinch back in expectation of a sweeping downwards strike that would see him torn open from throat to groin. _“You bring this all upon yourself, Konrad!”_ he roared as his hearts stuttered and his entire body tensed in the face of its imminent immolation. “You are the fool! You are the blinded one! I have no regrets, traitor! None! Ave Imperator! Victory or death! _Victory or death!_ ”

Curze howled a high wretched laugh and activated his claws. "Not for you, Corvus! Not for you!" and the glittering blades slashed out towards the primarch of the Raven Guard. With almost insulting ease Curze cut through the thick links of the chains that had held the Ravenlord in place since the Eighth Legion’s departure from Isstvan. Corax's freed arms dropped slackly to his sides and his knees nearly bucked as his bare feet took on the entire weight of his body. Pain erupted from his dislocated shoulder and each muscle screamed in protest as the stance he'd been forced to hold for weeks on end was finally broken.

Konrad Curze sprang smoothly backwards, retracting his claws and flinging out his long arms in anticipation. "Embrace me, brother! Come, satisfy the true desires of your heart! Fulfill your oath! There are only eight legionaries left, now - eight little Raven Guard chicks waiting oh-so-faithfully for their father to come and save them!" 

With an enraged scream akin to a wounded bird of prey, Corvus Corax threw aside all restraint and regret and flung himself unhesitantingly upon his self-doomed traitorous brother.


	14. XIV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which the decisions made in Chapter 10 come to fruition 
> 
> CW for bloody battle-violence, humiliation and physical abuse

**What You Deserve / Sleep, Brother / Enduring Loyalty**

**XX**

“Get up, brother; _get up_. I’m not finished yet – and neither are you.”

Konrad Curze’s voice was now a low contemptuous hiss, the fixed feral expression of his fanged skull-helm leering through the spotty darkness gathering at the edges of Corax’s vision like the imprint of some residual nightmare that lingers in a sleeper’s inner-eye even after he has awoken. But nightmare and reality were fused in an indistinguishable state now, and it was only the deep-driven pain pulsing throughout his body that kept the Ravenlord from allowing himself the false luxury of believing he was in the grip of another warp-influenced dream. But the unforgiving truth of his reality had transcended the malefic realm of visions and temptations; Curze had become his world and there was no possibility of overcoming or escaping him. Corax wanted to shut his eyes and go limp and make no further effort to attack or defend. Then he recalled Stradon’s helplessness as he writhed in agony under the Night Haunter’s claws and a fresh stab of hatred lanced through him, forcing the pain back and boiling his blood with fury once more.

“Yes, get up, Corvus – get up and start treating me like an adversary worthy of your wrath and vitriol. Or perhaps you need some help? Are you getting tired?”

Blood-slick armored fingers reached towards him but Corax did not wait for their touch as with a growl he pushed himself up from the dented wall he had been hurled against, his abused muscles trembling with exertion as he stood and faced his brother once more. This was a kind of fight more suited to the brutal straightforward natures of Russ and Angron: a long-drawn bloody brawl that was more a test of stamina and resilience rather then skill or intelligence. Curze had not yet brought his talons into play, preferring instead to grapple, punch and pummel his armorless rival. The Ravenlord’s lividly-scarred body was a now mass of variously-colored bruises and fresh blood oozed from flesh ruptured by the high-powered impacts of gauntleted fists. The captive primarch’s dislocated shoulder denied him the full usage of his left arm and all his nails were torn and broken from his futile attempts to grapple and claw his assailant. The lengths of chain dangling from the spiked manacles still enclosing his wrists served as handholds for Curze to wrench and jerk him bodily about; the skin of his knuckles was scraped off entirely and each breath he took filled the back of his burning throat with blood. Fully clad in his midnight-blue power-armor the Night Haunter was a lithe untouchable juggernaut that repelled Corax’s attacks even as a granite sea-cliff repelled the ever-crashing waves.

Yet Corax knew Curze was holding back. He did not want to consider the reasons why. The traitor-primarch remained unharmed and unhampered; the advantage was entirely his and he remained fully capable of ending the fight on his terms at any time. Confined as he was in such an enclosed space Corax did not dare betray his secret gift by vanishing from Curze’s sight; stalking him was out of the question. By freeing Corax from his bonds the Night Haunter was only furthering the Ravenlord’s humiliation, for Corax was just as powerless as he had been before and could do nothing to protect himself from the slow death Curze seemed set on meting out.

Curze ran his wet fingers down the front of his helmet, painting the white skull-plate red with the loyalist primarch’s blood. “Don’t worry, Corvus; I’m saving the claws for much later. I fear you might have gotten used to their caresses and thought a change in tactics was in order. Brawling _is_ rather fun – or it _would_ be if my opponent wasn’t such a pathetic weakling. Stradon may have been a mere Astartes but at least _he_ proved to be far more worthy source of entertainment – ”

Snarling, Corax sprang at his tormentor again, his exhausted mind flooding with vivid scenes of the Techmarine’s degrading torturous death; Curze laughed scornfully as he fended off the Ravenlord’s desperate blows. “How do you live with yourself, Corvus?” he jeered as he caught hold of the chain-ends swinging from Corax’s wrists. “How can you stand to still draw breath after being found so utterly wanting? I wager that if you had managed to escape from Isstvan V you would’ve gone slinking back to Terra to grovel and weep at Father’s feet for being such a monumental disgrace of a son. And if I were Him I would’ve ordered the Custodians to cut your throat and hang your carcass from the topmost tower of the Imperial Palace – because that’s what you _deserve_ , Corvus! You failed Him! You failed Ferrus and Vulkan! You failed Stradon and your entire Legion! And I will see you punished for your failures! I will see you broken and despair made your master because _that is what you deserve!”_

Drawing Corax’s arms apart Curze lunged forwards and smashed his helmed face into the Ravenlord’s, even as Lorgar had done in a frenzied pain-driven effort to free himself from Corax’s twisting talons during their fateful duel following the Dropsite Massacre. For a second time Corax’s nose was crushed and his chiseled aristocratic features destroyed by blunt-force trauma. The Ravenlord reeled, his head snapping back, blood spraying from his nostrils and mouth. Propelling the stunned primarch across the cell Curze slammed him against the far wall and drove his armored knee into Corax’s much-abused stomach. Corax screamed in utter anguish; his legs gave out and he fell heavily to his knees before the Night Haunter. Curze kept the chains taunt, drawing the Ravenlord’s arms up and forcing Corax to assume a supplicatory posture. The loyalist primarch’s hands clutched at Curze’s wrists but there was no strength behind their grip. Dazedly Corax raised his ruined face to stare up his brother and there were tears streaking his sunken cheeks. Curze laughed at the sight.

“And who would have ever thought things would end this way,” the Night Lords’ primarch sighed, sounding almost regretful. “Brother slaying brother; Legion turning against Legion; Father’s most exalted son seeking to cast Him from His throne…ah, I can only imagine the grief that will pierce Sanguinius when he learns Horus has betrayed the Emperor. Do you think Father will feel any grief when He learns the Retribution forces have failed? Will the Emperor shed a tear for Ferrus and the loyal dead of Isstvan? I think not. I don’t think He would even shed a tear for you, Corvus. So why are _you_ crying, hmm? Is the pain simply too much? Or do you see the truth of my words? You deserve this, brother – fate itself has decreed it so. The Imperium will burn because it was always meant to burn. If Horus had not turned against Father another brother would have. Who knows – perhaps in some alternate timeline it would have been you, o Lord of Ravens; perhaps it would have been you.”

Corax emitted a wordless moan of anguished denial and slumped limply against the Night Haunter’s legs, his over-taxed strength failing him at the last. With a brutal surge of armor-enhanced strength Curze wrenched him back to his feet and pinned him forcibly against the wall. “I aught to kill you now, Corvus; now would be a fitting time, I think. But I can _still_ see it; yes, deep down within you I can still see that last flickering flame of hope. You’re not truly broken – not yet; not to the degree your failings deserve. Come, then – I’ve prepared something for you, something special that will ensure that your re-illumination will know no end until I decide you are worthy of death.”

Corax barely registered the sound of the bulkhead grinding open as Curze pulled him away from the wall, forcing the staggering primarch to follow him as the Night Haunter walked backwards, dragging the Ravenlord with him into the dimly-lit corridor beyond the cell. Corax had never been invited aboard the _Nightfall_ during the Great Crusade and this was his first glimpse of the capital ship’s interior outside of the confinements of his prison. He took in the sight of eight Night Lords legionaries in Terminator-armor standing four-abreast on his left, the red eye-lenzes of their helms tracking his every movement. Whether by happenstance or at Curze’s explicate command each traitor Astartes was festooned with trophies fashioned from the helmets of fallen Raven Guard Space Marines. Corax quickly looked to his right as Curze halted in the center of the corridor and it took his fatigued brain the whole of five seconds who process what he was seeing. Then a fresh wave of lightheadedness overtook him and he had to bring every ounce of willpower to bear to keep himself from collapsing in the presence of so many foes. Curze was smiling. Somehow, impossibly, Corax knew Curze was smiling.

The bulky stasis-coffin rested upon the steel frame of a low-wheeled gurney and was flanked on either side by two midnight-clad Techmarines. It was perfectly sized to accommodate a primarch. Elegant Nostraman script and ornate Eighth Legion iconography adorned its ebony sides and lid, indicating the coffin was Curze’s own: a fail-safe built for the express purpose of preserving his life in the improbable event he received an injury so catastrophic that it could not be repaired by his own physiology or an Apothecary’s skill. Glowing energy coils sparked, their power contained, ready to give life to the stasis-field. In the shadows beyond the coffin stood eight more Terminators as still as statues, all awaiting orders from their primarch.

“I’m a busy man, Corvus,” Curze said as he repositioned the swaying Ravenlord so the battered blood-covered primarch stood with his back to the open coffin. “Unlike you, I have a Legion to command; unlike you, I have a crusade to oversee and another brother to defeat. There is much slaughtering to do and I have no intension of risking having you escape while my attention is diverted. I will miss our little debates but it can’t be helped. So you will sleep, for a time, until you are awakened and I come for you again.”

Corax did not attempt to fight against Curze as the traitor-primarch forced him backwards and half-pushed, half-lowered him into the waiting coffin, which rested so low he all but tripped backwards into it. It was deep and the squishy foam padding felt unexpectedly soothing against his bare bruise-inflamed skin. “The Lion…will kill you, Curze,” the Ravenlord rasped painfully with all the force he could manage, his words uncertain and slightly slurred as another wave of lightheadedness washed over him. “He will kill you and shatter your Legion…just as you traitors have shattered mine. Horus will be defeated and the loyal dead of Isstvan will be remembered with honor for as long as the Imperium endures. And the Imperium _will_ endure, Curze…the Emperor’s dream will be realized in one form or another; my faithful brothers will ensure it…Mankind _itself_ will ensure it.”

Curze dropped to one knee and bent over him, bringing his nightmarish face-plate close enough for Corax to touch. “Listen to me with the upmost care, Corvus: _I will come for you_. Let that promise be the first thought to cross your mind when you awaken. When the Thramas Crusade ends and the Lion lies gutted at my feet, then the Night Haunter will come for the Ravenlord… _and_ for his legionaries. Remember it, brother. Never forget it – not for a day, not for an hour: _I will come for you.”_

Corax’s eyes widened in sudden alarm. “My legionaries? What will you do with my legionaries? Konrad, what are you going to do to my – ”

Behind his helm Curze smiled vindictively and leaned back, depressing the activation pad on the coffin’s side as he did so. The stasis-field enveloped the loyal primarch of the Nineteenth Legion, freezing him in mid-question with a look akin to fear dawning on his stricken face.

Rising, the Night Haunter stepped back and removed his helmet as the Techmarines secured the lid and ensured all other aspects of the device were functioning as they should. An odd blend of relief and regret stirred within him. He was alone again, well and truly alone, his only available peer time-caught enquiring as to the fate of his precious gene-sons. Surrounded as he was by the gathered might of his entire Legion Curze nonetheless felt the familiar cloak of moody isolation settle over him once again. Until he delivered Horus’ message to the Lion in person he would remain bereft of a fellow primarch with which to match wits and converse with on equal footing. Curze bared his teeth and idly ran a hand through his tangled hair, suddenly feeling inexplicably tried and drained. Absently he licked his blood-coated knuckles, tasting the mastercrafted genetic legacy that comprised each fiber of Corax’s being in every molecule that touched his tongue.

“At last; thank you, father – now I’ll be able to enjoy a good night’s sleep.”

Curze snorted in amusement as First Captain Jago Sevatar passed through the dispersing ranks of the Terminators to stand beside him, Alastor Rushal shadowing his steps. “You’ve never enjoyed a good night’s sleep, Sev, and I’m quite certain you never will.”

“I was making a masterful attempt at humor, sire,” replied Sevatar dryly as Rushal walked to the stasis coffin and stood peering down at the frozen face of his primarch through the lid’s round viewport, his expression as unreadable as it always was.

“Because you feel _safer_ now, eh Sev?” Sevatar shrugged casually, wisely refusing to rise to Curze’s bating. “Because there’s no chance he can escape now, so that’s one less problem I need to worry about.”

Curze pulled back his thin lips in a hollow sneer. “You worry too much, Sev.”

“I’m your First Captain, sire – it’s my duty to worry too much.” Sevatar left him and went to stand by Rushal, who now had his back to the Night Haunter and together they stared down at the prone primarch as if they could each see something in Corax’s face he couldn’t. The sense of isolation gripping Curze deepened inexplicably. He was truly alone now. Sevatar had claimed a wayward raven for himself, had managed to do what Curze himself had been unable to. As he watched the Raven Guard and the Night Lord gazing silently at his beaten brother it occurred to Curze that even in his current state Corax was still capable of stirring awe and inspiring reverence in the hearts of the lesser transhumans. Suddenly glad he couldn’t observe the legionaries’ expressions Curze turned and stalked down the corridor, forcing the bulky Terminators to make way for him. The dark thrill of triumph he’d felt when Corax had sunk weeping to his knees before him had faded only to be replaced by a different emotion: envy. He recalled the look of victory that had flashed in Stradon’s eyes just before his death and considered how fiercely the surviving Nineteenth Legion Astartes still clung to their oaths of allegiance despite the torture and degradation they had been subjected to, despite knowing deep in their hearts their Deliverer could not save them.

“I should just kill them all,” The Night Haunter hissed softly to himself, his black eyes unblinking as blood began to leak from his left nostril. “I should tear them all apart in their cell and damn Corax to darkness and isolation forever.” He played the act over in his mind, imagining the cruel merciless deaths the last Raven Guard legionaries would suffer at his claws, ensuring Corax would be as alone and as friendless as he. Without thinking he turned right and paced down the corridor that lay in the general direction of the excruciation decks and their holding cells, passing scurrying serfs and saluting Night Lords alike without acknowledging their existence. There were only eight little ravens left and they would be powerless to stand against him; the deed would be done in a matter of moments…

Curze halted in his tracks and took a deep shuddering breath, raising a gauntlet to wipe away the blood seeping from his nose. No. _No_. As temporality gratifying as it would be to slaughter Corax’s last surviving sons he must show restraint. As long as the legionaries still breathed they collectively formed the living knife Curze would slowly twist into his brother until the Ravenlord well and truly broke. The gratification would be greatly delayed but when it did come the victory would be all the more sweet and succulent for it. Swiftly, before the temptation to rend and slay became too great, the Night Haunter retraced his steps. There were other outlets he could utilize to channel his inner torment and isolation. Leaving a scattering of blood droplets trailing behind him Curze headed back towards his own chambers, summoning his equerry, Captain Shang, over their private vox-link as his pace quickened and the suppressed violence boiled like acidic poison through his warped and crippled mind.

**XXI**

Skalx was smiling – a toothy malevolent grin so disgustingly condescending and revoltingly smug it took all Sebastian Hauster’s iron-forged self-control to remain seated and not hurl himself upon the arrogant Night Lord and tear that smile from his pallid face with his own fingers and teeth.

“So much for your hope, little carrion-feeders; so much for your deliverance. You see it now –you know it is the truth: Corax will not come. You are forsaken, utterly and completely and soon you will die screaming, unremembered and unavenged like the rest of your battle-brothers.”

The eight Raven Guard legionaries – excluding the comatose Feljak – had been ordered at gunpoint to sit together with their backs against the far wall of their holding cell while a Techmarine and a few of Skalx’s men set up a portable vid-caster in the center of their communal prison. When he had seen the device and realized the Night Lords intentions a heavy blackness had settled on the former acting-sergeant’s hearts and a peculiar coldness had afflicted his entire being. He had known – with a certainty so absolute – what the traitors planned the show them. All of them had known. Even before the vid-reel started Lychor and Anrett had begun to silently weep and Valps’ remaining eye had gone as hard and flat as a swordblade.

The Raven Guard watched. They watched as an armored Konrad Curze dragged a staggering Corvus Corax into a shadowed corridor bracketed on either side by Night Lord Terminators, naked, gaunt and blood-drenched. There was no audio. They quickly recognized the stasis coffin and its import. The reel ended after Curze had pushed the Ravenlord into the coffin and the Techmarines sealed the lid. None of the loyalist Space Marines said a word. Faced with the ultimate evidence of their primarch’s true powerlessness all their deeply-nourished hopes of rescue and revenge withered to dead ashes in their hearts. Sneering, Skalx stalked up to them, unclasping and uncurling the cruel whip he carried at his belt. “Are you still loyal, little ravens?” he asked with false exaggerated pity as he flicked the barbed tip at Hauster’s face, slicing open the skin under his right eye and causing blood to drip like tears down his pale cheek before it clotted. Still, the Raven Guard legionaries said nothing, collectively reverting to the taciturn stoicism the Nineteenth was infamous for.

“Come now, brother-cousins,” Skalx adopted a perplexed plaintive air. “The truth has set you free. There’s no more need for all this heroic defiance now that the source of your hope is lost to you. There can be no deliverance – so what do you have left to cling to? What use can your oaths serve now? You know your gene-father proved himself a failure on Isstvan so why did you put so much faith and trust in him? Why do you still –”

“Because he’s _our primarch_ , you grox-brained idiot,” spat Ullrav venomously, unable to restrain himself. “Because he freed us once before, before either we or he knew he was a son of the Emperor; because he believes in the Emperor’s dream and because he genuinely cares about us, unlike Curze, who would sooner see you all dead then –”

With a snarl Skalx slashed out at the defiant young Astartes and the whip tore into his left shoulder in a fine spray of blood. Ullrav didn’t even flinch. Anrett would have attacked Skalx then had not his men been covering them all with their bolters. “It’s true, traitor-filth,” Valps growled, smiling bitterly at the angered Night Lord. “If I had to could choose between serving under Curze and following the orders of a drunken navel rating with delusions of grandeur I would unhesitatingly pick the latter.” The Raven Guard sergeant made a dismissive shooing motion with his hands. “Go away, Skalx; you’ve done what you’ve came to do and regardless we are still loyal.”

The Night Lord stood still for a moment and then nasty grin spread across his face. “Not yet. You still think you’re such the indomitable stalwart champion of the oppressed, eh Sergeant Valps? You’ve got your men eating right out of your hand, don’t you? How nice. Must be quite gratifying for your ego during these trying times.” Skalx motioned to the Techmarine and the Night Lord removed the reel from the vid-caster and replaced it with a much larger one. Skalx’s grin widened. “We recorded everything, Valps. Everything. Then we edited it so the best and most entertaining parts could be enjoyed by all warriors of this worthy vessel while in-between campaigns. Maybe your men will find it equally entertaining and illuminating – at least it will be something to take their minds off poor Corax. Watch closely, little ravens, and see your illustrious leader being put through his paces!”

The vid-caster came to life again and this time it was Valps being filmed as he hung shackled hand and foot to an X-framed torture-cross in an otherwise vacant cell. The muscles in Valps’ jaw clenched at the sight but he said nothing. “I will order my men to shoot the first Raven Guard who looks away in the stomach,” Skalx promised as, on screen, a lone Night Lord entered the cell and stood thoughtfully regarding the helpless Astartes.

“I hope some Dark Angel buries a chainsword in your guts and you die writhing and screaming atop your own steaming entrails,” Hauster said coldly, careful not to take his eyes off the device as the recorded Night Lord removed his gauntlets and began to work the recorded Valps over with an ugly serrated knife.

“Quiet now,” Skalx held an armored finger to his thin lips, his cruel smile growing even wider as the Night Lords covering him laughed mockingly. “The best is still to come.”

**XXII**

“I have _always_ been alone,” the Night Haunter hissed softly in the quiet gloom of his musty disused bedchamber. “Isn’t that right, Shang? None of my brothers wanted anything to do with me, except Fulgrim, and he ended up betraying my trust at Cheraut. I conquered Nostramo alone, without my fraudulent Father’s aid – without _anyone’s_ aid – and under my kingship the planet thrived and its populace learned to live in peace with one another. I can kill the Lion alone also, if it comes to that. Do you think it will come to that, Shang?”

Captain Shang did not respond. Curze didn’t expect him to, especially since the equerry’s teeth were sunk deep in the bare flesh of his right arm. The Night Lord lay on his stomach atop the rumpled furs covering Curze’s great bed, stripped to the waist and weaponless, his obsidian eyes tightly shut as the Night Haunter dragged his long clawed nails languidly down his exposed sweat-sheened back, opening up ragged gashes that knitted shut in the time it took for the primarch's fingers to reach the hem of his trousers before he raised his hand to start afresh. The chamber was swamped in shadow and the stale air reeked of spicy genhanced Astartes blood. There was no light to speak of. Curze lay alongside him, his lean cadaverous body shrouded in a loose-fitting seldom-worn leisure-robe of ink-black silk – another of Fulgrim’s many gifts. Shang couldn’t stop himself from trembling under his gene-father’s twisted caresses – not from the pain being inflicted, but from the expectation of the pain that might _yet_ be afflicted, should Curze’s volatile ever-shifting mood take a downwards turn.

“It’s not as if I needed Corax’s company, much less his _help_ ,” bitterness dripped from each of the primarch’s words and Shang bit harder into the thick muscle of his forearm as the nails gouged deeper into him. Blood ran down his sides and stained the dusty pelts beneath him; Curze seemed to neither notice nor care. “He is the weaker brother, the inferior shadow-haunter, the False Emperor’s thrice-blinded tool. He fled from me at Isstvan and he’ll spend his time in exile ever looking over his shoulder, never able to rest, always waiting for me to come for him. His sons will perish one-by-one, leaving him alone, and when we finally meet again his despair and desolation will be perfect in their profound completeness. _Then_ I will kill him. Only when hope is a rotting carcass festering in his broken hearts will the ‘Deliverer’ be allowed to die. That is how you destroy a primarch, Shang. But first the Lion must be slain and when I return with Horus to Terra Dorn and I will have our reckoning and if Perturabo dares to interfere I’ll shatter that arrogant bastard from both within and without!” Curze howled his mirthless laugher and Shang flinched involuntarily, his body tensing as he felt the Night Haunter’s fouled breath brush the back of his neck.

“Turn over, Shang,” Curze commanded and the Night Lord instantly obeyed, withdrawing his teeth from his arm and presenting his scarred chest and stomach to his lord for continued caresses. Instead he felt the primarch’s wet fingers cup his cheek. “Open you eyes.” Shang opened them and with some reluctance forced himself to meet Curze’s abyssal black gaze. “And are _you_ still loyal, Captain Shang?” Curze’s voice was uncharacteristically gentle now, bordering on affectionate. For a fleeting moment he appeared almost beautiful and it did not seem right to the legionary that he should be so alone. Devotion swelled in the equerry’s hearts and he nodded. “Always, sire; to the darkest death.” Curze smiled faintly and then drew Shang into his arms, cradling the smaller posthuman close to his narrow chest. “Our way was never the way of the Imperium, Shang; that is the final truth. The galaxy will burn, even as Nostramo burned. You have never stood in the Emperor’s light, never worn the Imperial eagle – and now you never will. What then shall we do together in the Thramas system, my son?”

Now it was Shang’s turn to smile in the shifting shadows. “We shall come for them, father. The Eighth Legion shall come for them all.” 


	15. XV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for bloody battle violence, gore and self-harm

**Squad Corax / Re-Armored / Of Blood and Traitors**

**XXIII**

“Squad Corax, form up and prepare to fall out!”

It seemed to Sebastian Hauster that Kyrik Valps would sooner relive the horrors of the Dropsite Massacre from beginning to end then suffer the Night Lords to issue commands to his men during their final hours. The sons of Curze had come for them at last and regardless of the fate that awaited the surviving Raven Guard legionaries the stalwart brother-sergeant refused to permit his authority to be usurped, even in the face of certain execution. As one the warriors of the Nineteenth Legion took up their positions behind him. Cline Lowen stood at their center, holding the limp comatose form of Fallax Feljak in his powerful arms, his lips set in a grim line, his black eyes burning with a quietly-nurtured fury. Armorless and weaponless as they were the Raven Guard nonetheless marched from the holding cell in perfect synchronization, their shoulders back, their heads held high, utterly ignoring the squad of Night Lords who fell in around them, their electro-prods and neuro-whips held at the ready should any member of Squad Corax decide to make things difficult. Skalx, ever seeking to mock and belittle, saluted Valps smartly before taking his place at the head of the escorting Night Lords, his chainglaive clenched in his left gauntlet, prepared to spill blood at the slightest provocation.

Only Hektor Lychor walked with a noticeable faltering step, his inner mental turmoil manifesting in jerking twinges that shook his entire tortured body. One of the Traitor Marines snarled in scorn behind his visor and jabbed his charged prod into the small of the Raven Guard’s back but Lychor kept his composure and did not break rank to attack his assailant. They were all Valps’ men; they were all Squad Corax and they would not be found wanting in the eye of their commander.

Squad Corax. Marching at Valps’ right hand Hauster struggled to keep the bitter despairing smile from contorting his lips and betraying his innermost emotions. Corvus Corax still lived but that meant nothing now as far as the Raven Guard were concerned. Curze might as well have struck the Ravenlord’s head from his shoulders and jettisoned his body into the airless void for all the comfort his legionaries could draw from his continued existence. Where scores of Night Lords and all their sadistic knowledge had failed the Night Haunter had succeeded with a series of brusque shoves. There would be no rescue, no eleventh-hour jailbreak, no revenge to be wreaked upon those who had betrayed them and shattered their Legion. Corax would not come; he would never come. He was no more capable of delivering them then a sun was capable of speech. Hope was dead, loyalty an illusion and endurance a masquerade. Only the will of Kyrik Valps mattered now; only his commands could give structure or meaning to their lives, however brief they were destined to be. Corax could not come. Deliverance was lost to them.

They had not marched far when Skalx brought the Astartes to a halt beside a large familiar bulkhead. Lychor’s sharp intake of breath caused air to hiss softly between his bared teeth. Hauster felt nothing but indifference. _So it ends where it began. How fitting._ Skalx keyed his ident-code into the hololithic rune-pad and the door slid open. The smell of old blood wafted out on stagnant air. Hauster’s enhanced olfactory senses detected his own vitae among that of his battle-brothers, both those who still lived and those who had since perished. Skalx and his warriors withdrew to one side. “Enter,” Skalx growled, gesturing with his chainglaive to the dimly-lit chamber beyond. None of the Raven Guard moved. “With me,” Valps’ voice was level and unperturbed. He stepped into the chamber. Hauster and the rest immediately followed.

The rectangular space they entered was unchanged from the state it had been in when they had been escorted from it. Segments of rent and battered mismatched power-armor lay scattered about a floor befouled with rusty stains of Astartes blood. After being transported from the surface of Isstvan and the site of the Nineteenth’s Legion’s final defeat the twenty-one surviving Raven Guard legionaries had been brought to this chamber where their Night Lords overseers had forcibly stripped their war-plate and undersuits from them, countering any resistance shown by their new prisoners with pain and humiliation. Nearly all the Raven Guard had born wounds inflicted during their desperate battle with the World Eaters and none of them had been in any condition to put up a meaningful fight. In this room their sufferings had first began and now it would be the site of their conclusion. Hauster had a morbid thought that when their lifeless bolter-proliferated bodies had finished bleeding out upon the floor Skalx would reseal the bulkhead and the fleshly remains of the last of Corax’s sons would be left to rot away in silence and darkness even as the burned and blasted bodies of the Nineteenth Legion crumbled unavenged upon the black sands of Isstvan V. _Yes, that would be a fitting end indeed._

“About face!” Sergeant Valps remained as unaffected by their situation as ever. The seven Raven Guard Space Marines turned in unison to face their traitor kin, each man determined to look death in the eyes, but only Skalx stood in the doorway, his chainglaive resting over one spiked pauldron, his bolt-pistol still maglocked to his belt. “Re-armor yourselves, brother-cousins,” the Night Lord spat, his contemptuous features hidden by his helm. “You have one hour.” He retreated back into the corridor and the door slid shut, leaving the captive legionaries alone in the dim gloom of the chamber. There was a long almost disbelieving silence. “To arms then, brothers,” Valps said indifferently as he stooped and lifted a slashed undersuit that lay rumpled at his feet, the movement causing flakes of dried blood to rain in a torrent from the heavy reinforced black fabric. The blood was Valps’ own.

“I’m tired of all these damn games,” Ullrav growled furiously as the Astartes fanned out and began hunting down and gathering together those armor pieces that were the least damaged. The battle-plate of twenty-one warriors was strewn about them and now that only eight of them remained it was easier to piece together complete suites of Raven Guard armor that did not incorporate scavenged segments from other Legions. _No_ _weapons, sir_ , Anrett signed in disappointment after searching diligently amid the piles of plate. “No weapons,” laughed Rhayes in scorn as he paused in examining a heavily-dented helmet. “Of course not – did you honestly think they would leave us some? A handy krack grenade to stuff down Skalx’s throat? A convenient chainsword to dissect him with? What – ” 

“They left us _these,_ sir _._ ” Hauster informed Valps before an argument could break out. He had found a black tool box left behind in the midst of the mess. Opening it he had discovered a set of manual arming tools. At his brothers’ insistence Valps allowed himself to be re-clad in his power-armor first. As he helped the others adorn his commander in his abused but still-functional war-plate the all-encompassing blackness enveloping Hauster’s hearts lessened somewhat. If Skalx had hoped to diminish the brother-sergeant in the eyes of his men by broadcasting his torments for all to see he had failed miserably. Despite all that the Night Lords had done to him Valps had remained loyal to Corax and steadfast in his oaths to the Emperor. He had become a true hero of the Legion and it was with greatest respect that his subordinates armored him for battle once more. 

There were only three salvageable helmets, one of which they offered dutifully to their sergeant. Valps affixed the helm to the seals in his gorget and his hideous flesh-raw skinless face was obscured by the beaked visor. As his second-in-command, Valps then insisted that Hauster also be helmed, to which Hauster consented. The third helm was given to Feljak after Lowen and Ullrav had carefully clad the torporic veteran in full battle-plate. _Will you be able to carry him by yourself?_ Arnett signed quizzically while Hauster, Valps and Ullrav armored the big dependable Space Marine in turn. “I’ll carry him to the ends of the galaxy if need be,” Lowen rumbled as he flexed his gauntleted hands. “Morkaan would have done the same, if he’d been able.” Valps nodded; upon his return Hauster had briefed him on the details surrounding Morkaan’s death and Lowen’s promise to care for the Terran-born veteran he had died protecting; another outrage the Night Lords would answer for, in time.

It was Lychor who proved to be the most difficult to re-armor. The mad Astartes had donned a serviceable undersuit with little effort but shrank back with a snarl when Anrett and Hauster made to reattach the segments of plate they had collected for him. It was not that he disdained the damaged armor; he simply did not want others to place it upon him. Even before his capture by the Night Lords he had detested being touched for any reason; his time spent as a prisoner of the Emperor’s Children following the Dropsite Massacre had rendered him unable to tolerate any form of physical contact unless he instigated it, not even from his own battle-brothers. Valps had learned this the hard way early on and the Night Lords had taken particular delight in ‘interrogating’ him with every flesh-tearing apparatus at their disposal. Now Lychor bared his teeth at his comrades, a feral gleam in his remaining eye as he crouched against the wall, still twitching in the grip of uncontrollable muscle-tremors.

“Brother Lychor, you cannot armor yourself without assistance, and even if you could you would still be unable to attach your powerpack without another’s aid,” Valps explained with patient firmness. “We will be quick, I promise you. We are your brothers and we would never harm you like the traitors do. Trust us. We have all suffered, brother – you saw what the Night Lords did to me. I understand your pain, but this must be done. Let us help you, Hektor; _let us help you_.”

Lychor’s ravaged face contorted in a blend of agony and fury but he rose obediently and presented himself to his sergeant, spreading out his arms, jerking and shuddering as they began to reconnect the ceramite plates to his body’s interface ports, only relaxing when the armor’s auto-apothecarion dispensed pain-nullifiers into his bloodstream. Swift and efficient Valps kept his word and soon each of the eight Raven Guard legionaries were armored once more in a suit of battered power-armor whose compensating servos whined in protest with each movement and whose charcoal-black paint was scorched and scratched into near-oblivion by the devastating battles they had endured.

“I am going to kill Skalx if that is the last thing I ever do,” Ullrav vowed as he flexed his armored fingers, the lack of even a standard combat knife troubling him not at all. “No, we must be cautious, brothers,” Lowen countered as he took up Feljak in his arms again. “This is some part of Curze’s plan. There’s a reason the Night Lords are allowing us to re-armor ourselves and it’s not because someone has a vendetta against Skalx. We must be prepared for anything. What are your orders, brother-sergeant?”

Valps raised a gauntleted fist above his head, his crackling vox-speakers amplifying his voice in the gloom of the detritus-strewn chamber. “We endure! For Corax, for the Emperor and for the Imperium we endure! I do not know what foul designs our traitor-cousins have drawn against us, nevertheless you will conduct yourselves as befitting Astartes of the Nineteenth Legion; you will attack on my order alone; you will confront whatever the murderers of Nostramo throw at you with the righteous fury and the swift death justice demands! I will not forsake you, brothers – I have chosen the bladed path of my own volition _for we are still loyal! Victorus aut Mortis!”_

“Victory or death!” came the time-honored defiant war-cry of the Raven Guard legionaries. As if on cue the bulkhead slid open, revealing Skalx and his assembled squad. The whips and prods they’d been carrying were now replaced with primed chainglaives and readied boltguns. Squad Corax fell into orderly ranks behind their sergeant, the strained servo-joints of their war-worn battle-plate shrieking and grinding in protest. “My, _my_ , Sergeant Valps,” Skalx commented cruelly, cocking his helmed head in exaggeration as his red eye-lenzes appraised the armored loyalists. “Your men almost resemble warriors of merit in all that worthless scrap-iron. Do not even consider attacking or escaping us; some of my brothers would relish the conflict or the hunt but the Lord Curze has given his orders and I shall see his will done.”

“I find it amusing you are acting on the orders of another rather then satisfying your own base desires, traitor,” Valps replied scornfully. “Good to know a piece of Nostraman gutter-trash like you is capable of such selfless service; the Night Haunter must be humbled to have such dutiful gene-spawn to make sure his brother’s sons do not loose their way in the dark.”

Skalx’s voice was a guttural snarl of restrained fury. “Believe me Valps, if I had been indeed free to do as I wished you would have returned to find all your men in a far worse state then that miserable wretch, Lychor. Consider that you can still stand on your own two feet and that your mind remains unbroken; we have been merciful, Valps – far merciful then merited. Come, your fates are decreed and the Dark King’s judgments are to be carried out without fail.”

“Then let’s not keep him waiting; Squad Corax, with me!” Valps ordered, striding back into the corridor with Hauster and the rest following close behind; the Night Lords squad quickly fell into place around them. Now that he was helmed Hauster’s visor-display lit up with red targeting runes as his armor’s auto-sensors tagged the surrounding Eighth Legion Space Marines as enemy combatants, presenting him with risk-calculations and attack-trajectories factored on him being completely weaponless save for his gauntleted fists. The Raven Guard blink-clicked the runes away; he would not assault Skalx or his men until Valps gave the order – _if_ he gave the order.

On they marched up the decks through the labyrinthine corridors and transit-ways of the shadowed capital ship. Legion serfs and menials – all pale-skinned black-eyed Nostraman mortals, their pallid faces forever haunted by deep-set fear – made way for them with bowed heads and downcast eyes; contingents of armsmen and off-duty Night Lords regarded them with wary contempt. The bleached skulls of humans and xenos were displayed by their dozens at prominent intersectional junctions and Eighth Legion banners woven of flayed skins and blood-daubed alien-hide flapped lazily in drafts wafting from the laboring ventilation shafts. Aboard the _Nightfall_ fear was a tangible thing and its signature reek prevailed throughout the whole of the vessel; the atmosphere was at once crushingly subdued yet filled with a savage hostile malevolence. Faint screams ghosted at the edges of their hearing and the air was redolent with desperation, hopelessness and the faint cloying stench of decaying flesh. _What a wretched place,_ thought Hauster bleakly as Skalx led them through a vaulted chamber whose ceiling stanchions were decorated with the chained corpses of Iron Hands and Salamanders legionaries rotting in their cracked war-plate. _Give us the order, Valps. Give us the order so we can die at last and leave this fabricated hell to those who appreciate it._

But Valps gave no sign and so Squad Corax arrived at a place they had never expected to be taken: the void-hanger decks. The hanger the legionaries entered was relatively small and vacant save for a single Storm Eagle gunship whose weapons had been dismantled and a second squad of fully-armored Night Lords awaiting them. Beyond the open launch shutters the surface of a blighted gray and orange planet could be seen slowly revolving through the hanger's protective translucent void-barrier. The Storm Eagle’s assault ramp was lowered; a lone Astartes clad in charcoal-black power-armor stood before it, waiting. This warrior was no Night Lord. Hauster’s hearts clenched as jolt of recognition flashed through his mind even before a single indent-rune pinged in the center of his visor display, confirming the Space Marine’s identity and tagging him as a friendly combatant; the former acting-sergeant unconsciously bared his teeth as a stab of rage sent battle-stimulants spiking through his blood.

The legionary’s head was bare and his alabaster face, though marred with fresh scars of excruciation, was still immediately recognizable to them all. Valps halted dead in his tracks. The Night Lords escorting the Raven Guard peeled away and formed a loose half-circle around them. For once, Skalx said nothing. The black-armored Space Marine took eight steps towards them before pausing, his expression utterly neutral. His mended freshly-lacquered war-plate was bereft of rank, insignia or company markings but that made no difference to the incensed Raven Guard; they all knew who he was – or rather, they knew who he had once been.

_“Traitor!”_

It was not Valps who howled that terrible word at the top of his tortured lungs; nor was it Hauster or the hot-tempered Ullrav. The voice who cried it was unfamiliar to them, for they had never heard it utter a single intelligible word until that moment. The accusation seemed to fill the whole hanger, eclipsing all other sounds with the force of its proclamation. Alastor Rushal inclined his head slightly in response, as if to say: _so I am; and what is that to you?_

_“Traitor!”_ Hektor Lychor wailed again, and there was just as much grief tainting the word as there was fury as the stricken Raven Guard stared wide-eyed at his former captain, the shudders tearing through him visible to all despite being armored. Tears coursed unbidden down Lychor’s cheeks even as his tormented face twisted with animalistic ferocity, the last slivers of his sanity and control shattering in the face of this final insult. Rushal smiled. It was a condescending pitying smile – the type of smile reserved for crippled warriors and retarded children, a smile that exposed a mind utterly compliant with its circumstances and unashamed of the company it now kept: the smile of a true betrayer.

“Kill him, brother Lychor,” Valps commanded coldly, his own voice as dispassionate and unforgiving as the abyssal void surrounding them. _“Traitor!”_ Lychor howled a third time, then he charged Rushal, his ceramite boots slamming down like pistons upon the plasteel apron as he propelled himself towards the traitorous Raven Guard commander, his overgrown ebony hair streaming behind him, his armored fingers curling into vengeful claws.

Rushal sprang silently to meet his former subordinate, his face again expressing nothing save a vapid neutrality. Hauster’s retinal alarms went wild with warnings as the Night Lords arrayed behind them leveled their boltguns at the Raven Guards’ backs. “If any one of you tries to interfere you will begin your sojourn on Terminus II as a legless invalid,” Skalx warned. Before them the two Raven Guard legionaries clashed in a flurry of murderous punches and kicks, Rushal making no attempt to draw the power-stiletto or bolt-pistol maglocked to his belt. It was a bitter struggle. Even fuelled by righteous fury and armored in ceramite the months of privation and torture Lychor had suffered had weakened him profoundly. Still, in the first few moments he fought with the madness of a World Eaters berserker, giving no quarter, snarling and spewing unintelligible curses as he exchanged a series of punishing blows with his foe. Rushal said nothing, his features remaining impassive in the face of Lychor’s frothing vitriol. The traitor’s battle-plate had been fully restored to peak function and his movements were fluid and lighting-quick. _He’s indulging Lychor; putting on a show for his new friends_ , thought Hauster bitterly as the speed of Rushal’s attacks increased, putting the flagging Lychor on the defensive. _He’s_ enjoying _this…_

When the end came it was as savage as it was swift. One second Lychor was pummeling Rushal’s midriff and groin, the next he was reeling backwards, blood spraying from his multi-punctured throat. A mortal observer would not have seen Rushal draw his stiletto and plunge it deep into Lychor’s exposed neck above his gorget not once, but thrice. Even Hauster almost missed it happen. Lychor staggered, one gauntlet grasping at the wounds even as he lurched forwards, still trying to grapple with the captain. Rushal retreated before him, the pointed dagger held at the ready. “ _Trai…tor_ …” Lychor gargled sickeningly as he fell to his knees, his Larraman cells struggling to stem the bloodflow of the devastating strikes. Not to be denied he crawled after Rushal, his ceramite-plated knees grating harshly against the plasteel, bloody spittle drooling from his slavering lips as he struggled to close with his enemy. Rushal kicked the Raven Guard in the face, shattering Lychor’s lower jaw before kneeling and gripping the legionary’s greasy unkempt hair and slamming him face-down onto the apron with a gut-twisting crunch of breaking bone. Lychor shuddered and collapsed, half-stunned. Rushal turned him over onto his back, then stood, maglocking his stiletto to his hip and holding out an empty gauntlet. He was smiling again and this time it was the self-satisfied smile of a victor.

The sergeant from the Night Lords squad who had already been present in the hanger came forward and offered the fallen Raven Guard a massive double-handled Eviscerater chainsword. Rushal took it in both gauntlets and straddled Lychor, still smiling. “You’ll burn for this, Alastor!” Ullrav roared aloud as he realized what Rushal was about to do. “The Imperial Truth be damned – you’ll burn in the lowest pits of hell with all the other oathbreakers and kinslayers of Isstvan!”

The twenty gathered Traitor Marines filled the hanger with their amplified incredulous laughter. Rushal adjusted his grip and raised the chainsword, gunning the activation trigger as he did so. The brutal weapon revved to life in a screaming whirr of adamantium teeth. Lychor was still conscious. He gazed up at his erstwhile company-captain, his remaining eye glazed with anguish and confusion. He was no longer an inane pain-maddened beast in the body of an Astartes; some measure of awareness had returned and he extended an imploring hand, blood dribbling from his ruined mouth as he slurred out his last words.

“Brother-Captain…I… _why?_ Don’t…”

Rushal brought the shrieking chainblade down upon Lychor’s exposed head in a single ruthless stroke. The legionary’s upraised hand was ripped asunder as the weapon’s arch of decent took it through the forestalling limb. The churning teeth shredded Lychor’s scalp and bit into the reinforced bone of his cranium; blood and brain-matter spurted from around the blade as Rushal see-sawed the sword back and forth, causing bone-chips to fly like shards of shrapnel. Lychor’s facial features were obliterated and his body convulsed violently as his nervous system misfired in its death-throes. The hungry teeth chewed onwards until the blade burst through the Raven Guard’s pulverized skull and gouged a deep gash into the apron, throwing several teeth as it ground against the blood-washed plasteel.

Rushal depressed the trigger. The growling weapon slowly spun to a stop, its blood-drenched teeth choked with gore and matted hair. Rushal’s face was a crimsoned mask of genhanced vitae. Straightening the traitor saluted his former Raven Guard brethren with the dripping blade while the watching Night Lords stamped their boots and slammed their boltguns against their breastplates in approval at the savagery of the cold-blooded execution. “It seems the sons of Corax aren’t quite the milksops we’ve taken them for,” Skalx noted with feigned surprise. “Though I suspect he’s the only one worth keeping; right, Valps?”

“Is _this_ the will of your primarch then, traitor-filth?” asked Valps in a deceptively calm tone, his vox-grill flavoring his words with an aloof metallic air. “Are we to die at the hands of one of our own for the amusement of your battle-brothers? How _unimaginative_ ; and here I was thinking you had something especially gruesome and depraved planned for us.”

The Night Lord who had volunteered his Eviscerater for the murder approached Squad Corax, the trophy-helms of Tenth Legion Space Marines rattling forlornly against his polished armor-segments. “I am Sergeant Helark Thrale, 114th Claw-Company,” he rasped in a dry reptilian voice. “And as much as I’d enjoy killing you, Sergeant Valps, your deaths are regrettably out of our hands. Terminus II shall be your executioner; it is Curze’s decree that you and your men be exiled upon its surface for the duration of the Thramas Crusade. _This_ is the will of our primarch.”

“And what of him?” asked Hauster dully, indicating Rushal, who was examining Thrale’s chainsword in a critical manner. Thrale shrugged indifferently. “He belongs to First Captain Sevatar now, for he has accepted the truth of our cause and has reoriented his loyalties accordingly. The mad one – Lychor – his blood is on _your_ hands, Sergeant Valps: Sevatar permitted Rushal to witness his former brothers’ departure and you ordered Lychor to slay him; an entertaining diversion to be sure, but not apart of the original plan. His death could have been avoided had you not given him permission to act out on his flawed impulses.”

“Alastor Rushal was the captain of the 89th Company Raven Guard,” growled Lowen softly, “Hektor Lychor was one of his warriors; he was honor-bound to see Rushal punished for his treachery.” Thrale snorted in amusement. “What is that to me? You’ve just lost one of your men and the Storm Eagle has yet to leave the hanger. Get your warriors stowed abroad, sergeant, before I loose patience with your intra-Legion conflicts.”

“Very well, but we will take Lychor’s body with us; he’ll not be left here to rot on display as some perverse war-trophy.” Valps gestured to Ullrav and Anrett and the two young Astartes reverently carried Lychor’s virtually headless corpse into the interior of the gunship accompanied by the rest of Squad Corax. Hauster halted and waited in the entrance for the brother-sergeant. At the foot of the assault ramp Valps paused and faced Rushal, who still gripped the great chainsword, the weapon’s stilled teeth running thickly with Lychor’s congealing blood.

“I do not know what they did or what they offered you, _captain_ , but know this: you will find no brotherhood here; you will always be an outsider among the sons of Curze. Still, it is fitting that an oathbreaker and a murderer should end his days in the company of those with whom he shares true kinship. You are no better then those who betrayed the Imperium and shattered our Legion, Alastor. My men and I remain loyal; you will perish alone in your defection, an outcast and a betrayer forevermore.”

Raising his gauntlets Valps crossed his hands and splayed his fingers across his chest, forming the sign of the aquila. Rushal said nothing; his black eyes were hooded, his scarred gore-splattered features inscrutable. Turing his back on the traitors Valps entered the Storm Eagle and Hauster breathed a relief behind his visor as he took a seat and strapped himself in, relieved they were being allowed to leave this cesspit of sadists and murderers for good. With Corax trapped in stasis and only six battle-worthy legionaries left of the original twenty-one captured Raven Guard brought aboard the _Nightfall_ still living, Valps’ survival seemed borderline miraculous; yet Hauster couldn’t shake the feeling this was what the Night Lords – or at least Curze – wanted. Had their positions been reversed Hauster would have ordered them all executed once it became apparent none would recant their oaths of allegiance. Marooning prisoners they had put so much effort into breaking on some desolate world made no sense; they might as well been left to die on Isstvan V. _There is a reason this is happening; there’s some sort of plan behind it…_

There was no talk of attempting to take control of the Storm Eagle from the hardwired pilot-servitors once the gunship had boosted free of the _Nightfall_ ; though if Valps had ordered it they would have done so, though such an action would have been an immediate death-sentence. Witnessing Lychor’s violent end at the hands of his own captain had cut the Raven Guard legionaries in ways the sons of Curze had never truly managed. The forsaken Space Marines sat in taciturn silence; not even the discovery of eight black-bladed combat knives left for them on eight seats along with a hand-held auspex-tracker raised their spirits. Lychor’s lifeless body lay next to the motionless Feljak like an armored piece of offal flanked by black carrion-birds. The Storm Eagle vibrated jarringly as it lifted off the apron; Hauster closed his eyes, willing his tense muscles to relax and his turbulent mind to calm. _At least I’ll never have to look at Skalx’s ugly sneering face again…_

Then the dark truth twisted its jagged talons into his thoughts, crueler then any Night Lord’s knife: _you failed to kill him; now Skalx’s ugly sneering face will be the last sight countless innocents will see before he scoops their eyes from their sockets and flays the skin from their flesh. A Dark Angel must do what you could not, and by then it will have been too late for all the mortals he’ll have tortured and murdered –_

“Brothers,” Valps’ voice – his natural voice, undistorted by his vox-grille – broke the ruthless train of Hauster’s bleak thoughts. The Raven Guard opened his eyes again as he felt the gunship begin to accelerate. Valps had removed his helm and was regarding them all with a single long-suffering eye looking out of his flayed meat-raw face. “The bladed path is long and its end is hidden from those who walk it; but I willingly chose to follow it, as did you all. This is merely another testing-ground. We will endure, for we have proven ourselves loyal, both now and forevermore. We are Squad Corax and we will face the coming tribulations as befitting the sons of the Ravenlord. Whatever waits for us on the surface of Terminus II will know our silent fury and our swift justice. Banish the words and acts of the Night Lords from your minds and focus on the task at hand. Other loyal Legions will come to Terra’s aid; we must be patient, we must be steadfast and above all we must endure, even if we must wait a hundred years. This is the burden that has fallen to us and I will not shirk from it. Are you with me, brothers? Are you still loyal?”

The seated legionaries did not shout their fealty-bolstered assent as had become their custom; instead, as if possessed by some grim spirit of fraternity, they raised their black-bladed combat knives in unison. Valps grinned fiercely as he drew the tip of his blade down the exposed flesh of his right cheek, beginning under his remaining eye and ending at the underside of his jaw. Removing his helm Hauster joined his brothers in carving identical tear-tracks down their pale cheeks, giving the false impression they were weeping tears of blood. “For unrewarded loyalty,” Valps growled triumphantly.

“For the Lord Corax,” Hauster intoned as he drew the knife down the side of his face, heedless of the stinging flare of fresh pain.

“For the Nineteenth Legion,” rumbled Lowen as he wet his own blade, cutting slowly and deftly.

 _For the Imperium of Man_ , signed Anrett, his expression solemn as his knife went to work.

“For the Emperor, beloved by all!” snarled Ullrav as he slashed savagely, uncaring of the damage done.

“For our unremembered graves,” muttered Rhayes under his breath as he listlessly copied his brethren.

Genhanced blood dripped like tears down the Raven Guards’ filthy tormented faces. The descending Storm Eagle shuddered and shook around them as it began its downward plunge into Terminus II’s turbulent atmosphere. The blood-tears spattered on ceramite-plated knees and still the knife-tips tore open healing posthuman flesh as the legionaries continued mutilate their faces in an attempt to finally give expression to the mounting emotions they had kept contained within themselves for so long. Their actions were unprecedented: they were not akin to the feral Space Wolves or the savage White Scares; outside of honor-duels ritualistic bloodletting had no symbolic place in the Nineteenth Legion. For Hauster it was an education in catharsis and a means of keeping his ever-darkening thoughts at bay. For once it was not a traitor cutting him for his own twisted pleasure but Hauster himself, in full control of his actions and intentions. It felt intoxicating, having such agency once more – even the pain felt right, though Hauster was far past contemplating why. The blood fell. The legionaries wept their crimson tears of anger, regret, shame, pain, loss, frustration and sorrow as the shaking gunship bore them planetside, away from the tracking macrocannons of the _Nightfall_. Hauster did not care what awaited them below; he did not think the Brother-Sergeant cared either.

 _“For victory!”_ Valps cried ecstatically as blood-drops streamed from the self-inflicted cuts like red rain. _“For death!”_

“For victory and for death!” Squad Corax roared in response as the blades bit deeper. True tears were flowing from their eyes, blending in with the blood, washing away grime both external and internal. Hauster was only dimly aware that his hands were shaking ever so slightly. He did not care. He wept unashamedly and he bled as he cut himself and the Storm Eagle carried them far from their captors towards a selected destination chosen by a spiteful demigod. Down, down the sons of Corax fell, diving from one nightmare and into another, unknowing and uncaring, reveling in the heady rush of regained freedom, exalting in the agonized joy at still being alive and lost in the delirious venting of long-delayed grief. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you wondering why Rushal never speaks it's because Sevatar cut his tongue out. It's left ambiguous in canon whether he joined the Night Lords willingly or broke under torture. Out of respect for Rushal's creator I left the reasons unknown.


End file.
